For some of us, this can be nothing but bad news. A deal like this will legitimate the Taliban and enable them to be all the more firmly ensconced in Swat.
NYTimes February 16, 2009
Pakistan and Taliban Appear Near Deal
By ISMAIL KHAN
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Government officials and Taliban militants appeared to be near a deal Sunday on the violent Swat region of northern Pakistan, where the militants declared a unilateral 10-day cease-fire and the government indicated it was willing to accept the imposition of Islamic law.
Any formal truce would be a major concession by the government, which, despite a military operation in Swat involving 12,000 Pakistani Army troops, has been losing ground to a Taliban force of about 3,000 fighters. The militants have kept a stranglehold on the area for months, killing local police officers and officials and punishing residents who do not adhere to strict Islamic tenets.
High-level talks on Taliban demands for Shariah law in Swat and the surrounding region were to continue on Monday in Islamabad, Pakistan, involving President Asif Ali Zardari; the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani; and senior local officials. But on Sunday, a prominent regional official, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, said that there was already an agreement in principle.
The Taliban made several gestures on Sunday that appeared to be aimed at moving the deal along, including declaring a 10-day cease-fire with government troops in Swat. A militant spokesman there, Muslim Khan, said the move was made out of good will and told reporters that “our fighters will neither target security forces nor government installations.” But he insisted that the militants would fight back if attacked.
Earlier, Mr. Khan said that the Taliban had released a Chinese engineer, Long Xiaowei, who had been held hostage since August, The Associated Press reported.
Previous attempts at truces in the region have fallen apart, most notably last May. And the United States has strongly opposed making political concessions to the Taliban, urging Mr. Zardari’s government to fight more vigorously.
That appeared to happen last summer, when the army began an offensive in Swat. But the move quickly stalled, with troops reduced mostly to remotely shelling suspected Taliban sites and the militants effectively imposing their authority throughout the region.
Since then, Taliban leaders have proscribed what they call un-Islamic activities by residents, including watching television, dancing and shaving beards, and they have sometimes beheaded offenders. The penalties are regularly, and terrifyingly, announced over radio stations under the militants’ control. Tens of thousands of residents of the area, which was once a popular tourist spot and considered a mainstream part of the country, have fled the intimidation and violence.
It was unclear what any formal truce would include, and the government had recently said that it was not planning to withdraw troops from Swat.
Mr. Hussain played down the significance of a formal acceptance of Shariah law in the area, saying that it would be mostly a technical agreement.
“We are not enacting any new law,” he said. “The regulation already exists and is enforced in Swat, but the mechanism to enforce it is missing. We are only providing for an increase in the number of judges and setting a time frame for the disposal of cases.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Monday, February 16, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
An Arc of Instability for the next century?
The article on the latest drone attack on Uzbeks in the Tribal Areas that has the most detail on the issues, I think, appeared in Dawn, the Pakistani paper.
Buried deep in the article is a statement worth bringing forward for serious reflection. The author, Anwar Iqbal, quotes Admiral Dennis C. Blaire who referred to an "'Arc of Instability' stretching from the Middle East to South Asia that would be the source of challenges throughout the century." In a way, there's nothing new here -- we've been watching it go from bad to worse for years -- except that by giving the situation a name he has identified more clearly the critical nature of the situation. The world has a long term problem, whose implications have scarcely been internalized by the American people, that will occupy world attention for years to come. I'm glad he gave it a name.
The article also says, however, that even that critical regional crisis fails to be the greatest danger to the security of the United States. That status belongs to its own recent economic crash, created as we know by greedy rich Americans.
DAWN - the Internet Edition
February 14, 2009 Saturday Safar 18, 1430
US official says drones using Pakistan base By Anwar Iqbal
WASHINGTON: Drones that attack suspected terrorist targets inside Pakistan actually take off from the Pakistani soil, a senior US lawmaker said at a congressional hearing which also heard from the US intelligence chief that joint US-Pakistan efforts had reduced Al Qaeda’s capability to carry out terrorist attacks.
On Thursday evening, the Senate Intelligence Committee also heard from US National Intelligence Director Admiral Dennis C. Blair that nuclear weapons were preventing yet another war between India and Pakistan.
But it was Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, who stole the show with her disclosure about the use of a Pakistan base for the drone attacks.
Expressing surprise over Pakistan’s opposition to the campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against targets inside the Pakistani border, Senator Feinstein said: “As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base.”
As chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein has access to classified information which requires her to exercise caution when discussing sensitive matters in public.
Even Admiral Blair was taken aback. “Pakistan is sorting out” its cooperation with the United States, he said quietly, while responding to her remarks. He did not say whether what Senator Feinstein said was correct.
The existence of drone bases inside Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counter-terrorism than has been publicly acknowledged.
The CIA declined to comment, but former US intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Senator Feinstein’s account was accurate. Later, Philip J. LaVelle, a spokesman for the senator, said her comment was based solely on previous news reports that Predators were operated from bases near Islamabad.
‘Al Qaeda weakened’
Admiral Blair acknowledged that Pakistan’s current military campaign against the militants was having an impact. He said the pressure the United States, Pakistan and others were putting on Osama bin Laden and his core leadership in Fata had succeeded in weakening the terrorist group.
“Al Qaeda today is less capable and effective than it was a year ago,” he said.
The US intelligence chief, however, warned that Pakistan’s intensified campaign against terrorists has failed to subdue multiple insurgencies or quell growing radicalism in many parts of the country.
Admiral Blair noted that while no major country faced the risk of collapse at the hands of any terrorist groups, “Pakistan and Afghanistan have to work hard to repulse a still serious threat” to their governments.
He also warned of an “Arc of Instability” stretching from the Middle East to South Asia that would be the source of challenges throughout the century.
Impact of N-arms
Admiral Blair also spoke about the impact of nuclear weapons on India-Pakistan relations. He said that leaders in both countries realised that a war between them could soon get out of control, resulting in ‘tremendous devastation’ on both sides.
“I think there are a number of factors that would perhaps change the attitude that was there in 1947. One certainly is the possession of nuclear weapons by both sides,” Mr Blair said.
“There is no doubt that senior Pakistani and Indian leaders feel that a war between them would get out of hand and would result in tremendous devastation for both sides, far more than the issues in general in Kashmir that they’re confronting over,” he said.
“I think the violent extremism in the region of South Asia is changing attitudes, perhaps slowly, in Pakistan and in India... Now Pakistan is realising that this violent extremism can be a threat to them,” Admiral Blair said.
Admiral Blair said that determined efforts by Indian and Pakistan leaders to improve relations would fail unless Islamabad, for its part, took meaningful steps to cut support to anti-Indian militant groups and New Delhi, for its part, made credible efforts to allay Pakistan’s security concerns.
“The increase in violent attacks within India is a cause of great concern to its government, as is instability in neighbouring countries in South Asia,” he said.
In a stark departure from the Bush years, the US intelligence chief said that the failing global economy was a bigger threat to US security than Al Qaeda or the spread of weapons of mass destruction, which had led the list for years.
The admiral said that a worsening economy led the list of “emerging areas of concern,” while other growing threats include global warming and worldwide food, water and energy shortages.
“Time is probably our greatest threat. The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to US strategic interests,” he warned.
His comments on the economy were the biggest change from past threat assessments. In recent years the annual assessment, delivered to Congress had focused primarily on terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Buried deep in the article is a statement worth bringing forward for serious reflection. The author, Anwar Iqbal, quotes Admiral Dennis C. Blaire who referred to an "'Arc of Instability' stretching from the Middle East to South Asia that would be the source of challenges throughout the century." In a way, there's nothing new here -- we've been watching it go from bad to worse for years -- except that by giving the situation a name he has identified more clearly the critical nature of the situation. The world has a long term problem, whose implications have scarcely been internalized by the American people, that will occupy world attention for years to come. I'm glad he gave it a name.
The article also says, however, that even that critical regional crisis fails to be the greatest danger to the security of the United States. That status belongs to its own recent economic crash, created as we know by greedy rich Americans.
DAWN - the Internet Edition
February 14, 2009 Saturday Safar 18, 1430
US official says drones using Pakistan base By Anwar Iqbal
WASHINGTON: Drones that attack suspected terrorist targets inside Pakistan actually take off from the Pakistani soil, a senior US lawmaker said at a congressional hearing which also heard from the US intelligence chief that joint US-Pakistan efforts had reduced Al Qaeda’s capability to carry out terrorist attacks.
On Thursday evening, the Senate Intelligence Committee also heard from US National Intelligence Director Admiral Dennis C. Blair that nuclear weapons were preventing yet another war between India and Pakistan.
But it was Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, who stole the show with her disclosure about the use of a Pakistan base for the drone attacks.
Expressing surprise over Pakistan’s opposition to the campaign of Predator-launched CIA missile strikes against targets inside the Pakistani border, Senator Feinstein said: “As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base.”
As chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein has access to classified information which requires her to exercise caution when discussing sensitive matters in public.
Even Admiral Blair was taken aback. “Pakistan is sorting out” its cooperation with the United States, he said quietly, while responding to her remarks. He did not say whether what Senator Feinstein said was correct.
The existence of drone bases inside Pakistan suggests a much deeper relationship with the United States on counter-terrorism than has been publicly acknowledged.
The CIA declined to comment, but former US intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Senator Feinstein’s account was accurate. Later, Philip J. LaVelle, a spokesman for the senator, said her comment was based solely on previous news reports that Predators were operated from bases near Islamabad.
‘Al Qaeda weakened’
Admiral Blair acknowledged that Pakistan’s current military campaign against the militants was having an impact. He said the pressure the United States, Pakistan and others were putting on Osama bin Laden and his core leadership in Fata had succeeded in weakening the terrorist group.
“Al Qaeda today is less capable and effective than it was a year ago,” he said.
The US intelligence chief, however, warned that Pakistan’s intensified campaign against terrorists has failed to subdue multiple insurgencies or quell growing radicalism in many parts of the country.
Admiral Blair noted that while no major country faced the risk of collapse at the hands of any terrorist groups, “Pakistan and Afghanistan have to work hard to repulse a still serious threat” to their governments.
He also warned of an “Arc of Instability” stretching from the Middle East to South Asia that would be the source of challenges throughout the century.
Impact of N-arms
Admiral Blair also spoke about the impact of nuclear weapons on India-Pakistan relations. He said that leaders in both countries realised that a war between them could soon get out of control, resulting in ‘tremendous devastation’ on both sides.
“I think there are a number of factors that would perhaps change the attitude that was there in 1947. One certainly is the possession of nuclear weapons by both sides,” Mr Blair said.
“There is no doubt that senior Pakistani and Indian leaders feel that a war between them would get out of hand and would result in tremendous devastation for both sides, far more than the issues in general in Kashmir that they’re confronting over,” he said.
“I think the violent extremism in the region of South Asia is changing attitudes, perhaps slowly, in Pakistan and in India... Now Pakistan is realising that this violent extremism can be a threat to them,” Admiral Blair said.
Admiral Blair said that determined efforts by Indian and Pakistan leaders to improve relations would fail unless Islamabad, for its part, took meaningful steps to cut support to anti-Indian militant groups and New Delhi, for its part, made credible efforts to allay Pakistan’s security concerns.
“The increase in violent attacks within India is a cause of great concern to its government, as is instability in neighbouring countries in South Asia,” he said.
In a stark departure from the Bush years, the US intelligence chief said that the failing global economy was a bigger threat to US security than Al Qaeda or the spread of weapons of mass destruction, which had led the list for years.
The admiral said that a worsening economy led the list of “emerging areas of concern,” while other growing threats include global warming and worldwide food, water and energy shortages.
“Time is probably our greatest threat. The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to US strategic interests,” he warned.
His comments on the economy were the biggest change from past threat assessments. In recent years the annual assessment, delivered to Congress had focused primarily on terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
On the drone attack: Was I dreaming? Or did the NYT detele the most interesting statement in today's paper?
I am confused and feel cheated. Today's NYTimes has an article on the drone attack on a community in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan. I would swear that I found a sentence that indicated that the Pakistanis were bothered that the American drones were attacking only those insurgents who were crossing into Afghanistan to attack civilians, the implication being that they wanted the Americans also to attack the Taliban who were active inside Pakistan. Unfortunately I did not copy the article as it stood at about 6:30 this a.m. What I can find now seems to have been changed -- at least I find no such statement in this article.
So now I'm wondering if I'm dreaming. So my statement on the matter has to be tempered by the possibility that I'm crazy [don't ask Rita, my dear wife]. For the moment I have to change the title: but I still wonder ...
What I posted a litter earlier today was the following:
A new complaint: "You're ignoring our bad guys."
Tucked in today's New York Times article on the drone attack in Pakistan is a new wrinkle. All along we have been reading that the Pakistani government has complained that the drones are killing civilians. This article says that the Pakistani government complains that the attacks only kill Taliban and Al Qaeda who are invading Afghanistan. Now the objection is, "Why don't you kill our Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, the ones that attack people in Pakistan?" Maybe I've missed it before, but this is a new twist on Pakistan's complaints about drones.
Another new twist, at least to me, is that the drones are being launched inside Pakistan. Clearly the relationship of the Americans and Pakistanis has been changing. If all this is true, and confident information on what's going on in that part of the world is elusive, we might hope for some meaningful progress in dealing with the insurgency that has long been nourished in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
[Click on the title to link to The New York Times February 15, 2009 U.S. Drones Kill up to 32 in Pakistan By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH.]
A report on the event in the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/4620641/US-drone-attack-kills-25-Taliban-in-Pakistan.html
A report on the event in Dawn: http://www.dawn.com/2009/02/14/top2.htm
So now I'm wondering if I'm dreaming. So my statement on the matter has to be tempered by the possibility that I'm crazy [don't ask Rita, my dear wife]. For the moment I have to change the title: but I still wonder ...
What I posted a litter earlier today was the following:
A new complaint: "You're ignoring our bad guys."
Tucked in today's New York Times article on the drone attack in Pakistan is a new wrinkle. All along we have been reading that the Pakistani government has complained that the drones are killing civilians. This article says that the Pakistani government complains that the attacks only kill Taliban and Al Qaeda who are invading Afghanistan. Now the objection is, "Why don't you kill our Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, the ones that attack people in Pakistan?" Maybe I've missed it before, but this is a new twist on Pakistan's complaints about drones.
Another new twist, at least to me, is that the drones are being launched inside Pakistan. Clearly the relationship of the Americans and Pakistanis has been changing. If all this is true, and confident information on what's going on in that part of the world is elusive, we might hope for some meaningful progress in dealing with the insurgency that has long been nourished in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
[Click on the title to link to The New York Times February 15, 2009 U.S. Drones Kill up to 32 in Pakistan By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH.]
A report on the event in the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/4620641/US-drone-attack-kills-25-Taliban-in-Pakistan.html
A report on the event in Dawn: http://www.dawn.com/2009/02/14/top2.htm
Friday, February 13, 2009
A better future for women in Iran?
Like all the countries of the Middle East and Central Asia Iran is a caldron of conflicting forces. These populations are young, almost half of them under the age of twenty. Among them there is a high and rising incidence of drug use and addiction. There are more evidences of despair and hopelessness in their fiction (someone recently returned tells me); more signs of repression against rights of conscience.
It's hard to characterize a country. That's why we watch technical and demographic trends: Modern means of communication and transport, natural resources being put to use, population trends -- these can be sources of change.
But we can never anticipate how things will change. Today's NYTimes article on women pressing for their rights in Iran (with a confusing photograph about women demonstrating against the Israeli attack on Gaza) belongs in the list of trends -- important as they may be -- that can be read in different ways. Whatever they are, the influence of modern education, television, telephones, etc. have a lot to do with making them happen.
The New York Times February 13, 2009
Starting at Home, Iran’s Women Fight for Rights
By NAZILA FATHI
. . . Women’s rights advocates say Iranian women are displaying a growing determination to achieve equal status in this conservative Muslim theocracy, where male supremacy is still enscribed in the legal code. One in five marriages now end in divorce, according to government data, a fourfold increase in the past 15 years.
And it is not just women from the wealthy, Westernized elites. The family court building in Vanak Square here is filled with women, like Ms. Qassemi, who are not privileged. Women from lower classes and even the religious are among those marching up and down the stairs to fight for divorces and custody of their children.
Increasing educational levels and the information revolution have contributed to creating a generation of women determined to gain more control over their lives, rights advocates say.
Confronted with new cultural and legal restrictions after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, some young women turned to higher education as a way to get away from home, postpone marriage and earn social respect, advocates say. . . .
Today, more than 60 percent of university students are women, compared with just over 30 percent in 1982, . . .
Even for those women for whom college is not an option, the Internet and satellite television have opened windows into the lives of women in the West. “Satellite has shown an alternative way of being,” said Syma Sayah, a feminist involved in social work in Tehran. “Women see that it is possible to be treated equally with men.”
Another sign of changing attitudes is the increasing popularity of books, movies and documentaries that explore sex discrimination, rights advocates say.
[Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company]
Click on the title for the original article
It's hard to characterize a country. That's why we watch technical and demographic trends: Modern means of communication and transport, natural resources being put to use, population trends -- these can be sources of change.
But we can never anticipate how things will change. Today's NYTimes article on women pressing for their rights in Iran (with a confusing photograph about women demonstrating against the Israeli attack on Gaza) belongs in the list of trends -- important as they may be -- that can be read in different ways. Whatever they are, the influence of modern education, television, telephones, etc. have a lot to do with making them happen.
The New York Times February 13, 2009
Starting at Home, Iran’s Women Fight for Rights
By NAZILA FATHI
. . . Women’s rights advocates say Iranian women are displaying a growing determination to achieve equal status in this conservative Muslim theocracy, where male supremacy is still enscribed in the legal code. One in five marriages now end in divorce, according to government data, a fourfold increase in the past 15 years.
And it is not just women from the wealthy, Westernized elites. The family court building in Vanak Square here is filled with women, like Ms. Qassemi, who are not privileged. Women from lower classes and even the religious are among those marching up and down the stairs to fight for divorces and custody of their children.
Increasing educational levels and the information revolution have contributed to creating a generation of women determined to gain more control over their lives, rights advocates say.
Confronted with new cultural and legal restrictions after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, some young women turned to higher education as a way to get away from home, postpone marriage and earn social respect, advocates say. . . .
Today, more than 60 percent of university students are women, compared with just over 30 percent in 1982, . . .
Even for those women for whom college is not an option, the Internet and satellite television have opened windows into the lives of women in the West. “Satellite has shown an alternative way of being,” said Syma Sayah, a feminist involved in social work in Tehran. “Women see that it is possible to be treated equally with men.”
Another sign of changing attitudes is the increasing popularity of books, movies and documentaries that explore sex discrimination, rights advocates say.
[Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company]
Click on the title for the original article
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Pakistan's shaky economy: Like the rest of the world
Syed Fazl-e-Haider has provided an assessment of Pakistan's economy. It doesn't look good, but what country's economy looks good these days? From
- The country got a US$750 million from IMF in order to manage balance of payment problems after reserves sank 75% and donor countries refused to help out. They are now hoping for a second installment of the same amount, and so far they have been able to stay within IMF stipulated requirements.
- The World Bank plans to provide up to $2 billion in credit to
- Inflation is declining but in January it was at 20.5%; it was 25% last October. The central bank interest rate is 15% and there is a chance of a cut in interest rate. It has “increased its benchmark interest rate five times in the past 18 months to tame core inflation (that is, excluding food and energy)”.
- The trade deficit has increased 3.5% to $10.727 billion in seven months (July-January) of 2008-09 from the corresponding period a year earlier, mainly due to costly imports of oil, fertilizer, wheat and other essentials and a decline in the textile sector's dyeing exports. Moreover, “the $22.10 billion export target for the fiscal year ending in June seems beyond reach.”
- Foreign exchange reserves have been falling.
- The country is likely to miss its annual fiscal deficit target of 4.2% of GDP set for the current fiscal year ending June 2009. "If the current trends persist, and strong corrective measures are not undertaken promptly, the annual fiscal deficit target of 4.2% of GDP for 2008-09 may not be met," according to the Fiscal Policy Statement 2008-09 recently released by the Finance Ministry.
- Domestic debt rose by 9.27% during the first half of the current financial year.
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Russian geopolitics, gas pipelines, and underlying health trends in Central Asia
From the recent New York Review (Feb 12, 2009): Christian Caryl’s review of Edward Lucas’s book, The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West brings together a number of sensible insights about Russia today.
For one thing, there is the discussion of the practical entailments of producing and distributing gas as opposed to oil in Eurasia.
Natural gas pipelines are immensely expensive. Once a line connecting a particular field with a particular consumer has been built, investors tend to be leery of putting money into duplicate or partially overlapping routes. And if the builder of the first pipeline refuses to allow it to be used by competing suppliers, consumers will be left with only one choice. This means that the monopolistic supplier can exploit its route to its own advantage in a myriad of ways—including, in the case of Russia, to exert political pressure.
And this, indeed, is precisely what Gazprom, Russia's powerful state-dominated gas monopoly, has done. Gazprom—whose chairman during much of the Putin administration was Medvedev, the current president and close Putin ally—doesn't just own most of Russia's gas fields; it also controls access to the pipelines that bring that gas to markets—above all to the European Union, which despite its status as the world's largest economy has relatively little in the way of indigenous energy resources and finds itself correspondingly dependent on Russian petroleum products. (By 2004, Russia was the sole gas supplier to Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Slovakia; and the principal supplier to Germany, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Turkey. Overall, it accounts for nearly 30 percent of the EU's gas supply.) Gazprom has already shown its willingness to employ its stranglehold over energy supplies as a political weapon, even if it often does so in the guise of dispassionate adjustment to market realities.
As we have seen in the startling recent dispute with Ukraine, governments that disagree with Russian policy have been punished by overnight price hikes or interruptions in service. The Ukraine standoff began in the last days of 2008, ostensibly over Russia's demand for a large increase in the price Ukraine pays for its gas; but the ensuing shutdown affected much of Europe, including leading nations such as Germany, and some analysts suggest that the standoff has been a way for Russia to warn the West about exerting too much influence in Ukrainian affairs. In fact much of the gas Russia sends westward actually comes from the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan, which is forced to sell to the Russians at bargain-basement rates since Gazprom pipelines are the only way the Turkmens can get their gas to market.
Another issue: He also points out a contradiction (possibly an emerging issue in the future?) between how the Russians view Ukraine and how the Ukrainians view themselves.
But the real flashpoint—the fulcrum of Eurasia's destiny, as the recent natural gas crisis reminds us—is Ukraine, a big and unstable country that has always been a focus of geopolitical competition. A large chunk of Russia's navy, the Black Sea Fleet, is still based in Crimea, and many Russians continue to regard Ukraine in much the same way that Serbs see Kosovo—as a heartland of their own national culture. At the same time, although more than 20 percent of the Ukrainian population are ethnic Russians, a large and apparently growing number of Ukrainians increasingly link their own national identity and historical destiny with Europe rather than their neighbor to the east.
And the contradiction is already imbedded in the Ukrainian cabinet: There has been a
long-running feud between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who recently traveled to Moscow for a round of surprisingly convivial negotiations with Putin.
Other details of interest:
• “Russian spying in Europe and the US … has, in fact, reached levels comparable to the bad old days of the Soviet Union.” [p23]
• “What he insists upon very strongly is that Europe must make every effort it can to reduce its dependency on Russian energy supplies by creating a Europe-wide energy market with diversified sources of supply. [He proposes that] … European countries should cooperate in developing pipelines that would connect their market with Central Asian suppliers such as Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan while bypassing Russian intermediaries” [p23] [That would be nice, but how effectively could they manage that, given that Russia, recognizing that possibility, seems eager to position itself as the hegemon in Central Asia? Russia has demonstrated its readiness to intervene in such affairs, as it already has for other reasons in Chechnya and Georgia.]
• “Russia, contrary to all the feverish talk about its presumed status as a revived superpower, is nothing of the kind. It is a rising regional power that enjoys the benefit of immense geographical reach and huge natural resources. Yes, it has a nuclear arsenal and a big army—but, as Lucas correctly notes, the former is outdated and poorly maintained, . . . Meanwhile, the financial crisis has dramatically highlighted the anemic basis of Russia's supposedly formidable economy. . . . Russia's international image has deteriorated sharply, and investors both domestic and foreign have bolted. . . . Russia's stock markets [have lost] up to 75 percent of their value …. Meanwhile, the country's extraordinary demographic decline—aggravated by a nationwide drug and alcohol epidemic, a catastrophically underfunded health system, and the rapid spread of AIDS—continues seemingly unchecked. . . . One good start, though, might be to exercise a bit more caution in how we employ historical analogies. In reality we are not entering a "New Cold War" or anything like it. What we are facing is the messy challenge of figuring out where a big, ailing, mournfully post-imperial Russia fits into the chaotic twenty-first century.” [p24]
This last note on the internal decay of Russian society makes us wonder what’s going on in the other states of Central Asia, not only the “stans,” but also Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. If anything, health conditions in those countries are worse than in Russia. Even if, presumably, alcohol is less of a problem in those countries, we do know that drug consumption in some of them has been rising rapidly. A friend of mine has seen the figures on Iran: Iran has the highest incidence of drug abuse in the world.
For one thing, there is the discussion of the practical entailments of producing and distributing gas as opposed to oil in Eurasia.
Natural gas pipelines are immensely expensive. Once a line connecting a particular field with a particular consumer has been built, investors tend to be leery of putting money into duplicate or partially overlapping routes. And if the builder of the first pipeline refuses to allow it to be used by competing suppliers, consumers will be left with only one choice. This means that the monopolistic supplier can exploit its route to its own advantage in a myriad of ways—including, in the case of Russia, to exert political pressure.
And this, indeed, is precisely what Gazprom, Russia's powerful state-dominated gas monopoly, has done. Gazprom—whose chairman during much of the Putin administration was Medvedev, the current president and close Putin ally—doesn't just own most of Russia's gas fields; it also controls access to the pipelines that bring that gas to markets—above all to the European Union, which despite its status as the world's largest economy has relatively little in the way of indigenous energy resources and finds itself correspondingly dependent on Russian petroleum products. (By 2004, Russia was the sole gas supplier to Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Slovakia; and the principal supplier to Germany, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Turkey. Overall, it accounts for nearly 30 percent of the EU's gas supply.) Gazprom has already shown its willingness to employ its stranglehold over energy supplies as a political weapon, even if it often does so in the guise of dispassionate adjustment to market realities.
As we have seen in the startling recent dispute with Ukraine, governments that disagree with Russian policy have been punished by overnight price hikes or interruptions in service. The Ukraine standoff began in the last days of 2008, ostensibly over Russia's demand for a large increase in the price Ukraine pays for its gas; but the ensuing shutdown affected much of Europe, including leading nations such as Germany, and some analysts suggest that the standoff has been a way for Russia to warn the West about exerting too much influence in Ukrainian affairs. In fact much of the gas Russia sends westward actually comes from the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan, which is forced to sell to the Russians at bargain-basement rates since Gazprom pipelines are the only way the Turkmens can get their gas to market.
Another issue: He also points out a contradiction (possibly an emerging issue in the future?) between how the Russians view Ukraine and how the Ukrainians view themselves.
But the real flashpoint—the fulcrum of Eurasia's destiny, as the recent natural gas crisis reminds us—is Ukraine, a big and unstable country that has always been a focus of geopolitical competition. A large chunk of Russia's navy, the Black Sea Fleet, is still based in Crimea, and many Russians continue to regard Ukraine in much the same way that Serbs see Kosovo—as a heartland of their own national culture. At the same time, although more than 20 percent of the Ukrainian population are ethnic Russians, a large and apparently growing number of Ukrainians increasingly link their own national identity and historical destiny with Europe rather than their neighbor to the east.
And the contradiction is already imbedded in the Ukrainian cabinet: There has been a
long-running feud between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who recently traveled to Moscow for a round of surprisingly convivial negotiations with Putin.
Other details of interest:
• “Russian spying in Europe and the US … has, in fact, reached levels comparable to the bad old days of the Soviet Union.” [p23]
• “What he insists upon very strongly is that Europe must make every effort it can to reduce its dependency on Russian energy supplies by creating a Europe-wide energy market with diversified sources of supply. [He proposes that] … European countries should cooperate in developing pipelines that would connect their market with Central Asian suppliers such as Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan while bypassing Russian intermediaries” [p23] [That would be nice, but how effectively could they manage that, given that Russia, recognizing that possibility, seems eager to position itself as the hegemon in Central Asia? Russia has demonstrated its readiness to intervene in such affairs, as it already has for other reasons in Chechnya and Georgia.]
• “Russia, contrary to all the feverish talk about its presumed status as a revived superpower, is nothing of the kind. It is a rising regional power that enjoys the benefit of immense geographical reach and huge natural resources. Yes, it has a nuclear arsenal and a big army—but, as Lucas correctly notes, the former is outdated and poorly maintained, . . . Meanwhile, the financial crisis has dramatically highlighted the anemic basis of Russia's supposedly formidable economy. . . . Russia's international image has deteriorated sharply, and investors both domestic and foreign have bolted. . . . Russia's stock markets [have lost] up to 75 percent of their value …. Meanwhile, the country's extraordinary demographic decline—aggravated by a nationwide drug and alcohol epidemic, a catastrophically underfunded health system, and the rapid spread of AIDS—continues seemingly unchecked. . . . One good start, though, might be to exercise a bit more caution in how we employ historical analogies. In reality we are not entering a "New Cold War" or anything like it. What we are facing is the messy challenge of figuring out where a big, ailing, mournfully post-imperial Russia fits into the chaotic twenty-first century.” [p24]
This last note on the internal decay of Russian society makes us wonder what’s going on in the other states of Central Asia, not only the “stans,” but also Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. If anything, health conditions in those countries are worse than in Russia. Even if, presumably, alcohol is less of a problem in those countries, we do know that drug consumption in some of them has been rising rapidly. A friend of mine has seen the figures on Iran: Iran has the highest incidence of drug abuse in the world.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
The real reason Kyrghyzstan threw out the Americans [?]
Joshua Kucera has given us some insight into why the Americans were thrown out of the Manas airbase in Kyrghyzstan. His explanation seems consistent with the trends in Central Asia anyway: That is, that Russia holds the strategic cards and seems to be ready to play them aggressively. The effect could be to establish Russia as a formidable hegemon in the region between Europe and China, because it has the advantage of strategic location and a surfeit of energy reserves that are vital to the populations at both ends of the Eurasian continent. This is the connection of Russian activities in Georgia and before that in Chechnya.
The old arguments about the difficulty for the Russian- Soviet empires to define "where to stop" in their dealings with their frontiers seem still relevant; there are few natural boundaries eastward from the Russian metropol, and there is a continual worry about what can develop on the frontiers. Prudence under such conditions suggests that it is wise to address frontier issues aggressively before they threaten the integrity of the system, given that it is already threatened by many internal faultlines. For an empire that stands on feet of clay, geography still matters, even in this post-modern world -- and thus, geopolitics.
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 February 2009 15.00 GMT
Kyrgyzstan shows US the door, by Joshua Kuceea
More than a rent dispute, America's eviction from a key military base is fallout from Russia's fight with Georgia
The war between Russia and Georgia last summer has claimed another victim: the US airbase in Kyrgyzstan.
The details of the US's apparent ejection from its only remaining base in ex-Soviet Central Asia remain murky, but initial reports suggest that the US was simply outbid by Russia. Russia offered a $2bn aid package to Kyrgyzstan, and the US's $150m annual payments to Kyrgyzstan suddenly looked pretty paltry. Underscoring the point, the president of Kyrgyzstan made the announcement not at home, but while on a trip to Moscow.
So it's tempting to write this off as bazaar politics. But the seeds for this move were sown last August in Georgia, when the US failed to do anything substantial to support its close ally in its war against Russia. Georgia, remember, sent a quarter of its armed forces to Iraq, despite the presence of two festering conflicts on its own soil, solely to curry favour with the US. It enacted free-market economic reforms so quickly, and in spite of significant social dislocation, that it was named the top reforming country in the world by the World Bank.
So when Georgia went to war with Russia and the US stood by, it sent a strong signal to the rest of America's would-be allies in the former Soviet Union. (Remember also, while it's now clear that Georgia and Russia were both culpable for that war breaking out, as soon as fighting started US officials immediately blamed Russia.) If the US isn't going to defend Georgia, would it defend Azerbaijan, or Ukraine or Kazakhstan?
Kyrgyzstan has apparently answered that question for itself by jettisoning the Americans in favour of Russia. The US base has been controversial in Kyrgyzstan. There were disputes over fuel dumping, the shooting of a Kyrgyzstan citizen by an American base guard and the rent paid by the Americans. In 2007, Kyrgyzstan raised the rent from $2m a year to about $63m a year, and the US provides a total aid package to the country of about $150m a year. While Kyrgyzstan officials frequently complained about the base, US officials believed it was just a bargaining technique, intended to drive up the price. (Russia has its own airbase in Kyrgyzstan, for which it pays no rent.)
I was in Kyrgyzstan about 18 months ago, and one diplomat told me: "I don't think Kyrgyzstan is interested in driving out the base. … The US is providing about $150m a year in aid, and they have to expect that if the airbase leaves some of that will disappear, and Russia and China won't be able to compensate for it." Well, Russia has called America's bluff, again.
The base is a supply hub for US operations in Afghanistan, and the implications of its closure on the US effort there would likely be dire. The US has already been kicked out of one base in Central Asia, the Karshi-Khanabad air base in Uzbekistan. And the US – about to double its footprint in Afghanistan – was already struggling to figure out how to get the extra supplies there, even before Kyrgyzstan's announcement.
Which makes the apparent Russian hand behind this move all the more puzzling. Conventional wisdom about the base said that Russia, while occasionally complaining about it in public, privately wanted it to stay. Russia was just as afraid of Islamist extremism as was the US, this logic went, and was perfectly happy to have the US spending its blood and treasure defeating the Taliban.
According to Russia's Nato representative, that logic has now been reversed, arguing that the US presence in Afghanistan is actually fomenting instability there: "Americans' failure in Afghanistan is creating a bigger threat to neighbouring countries. Military actions, which are being aimed against civilians, helped those who were not going to take sides with the Taliban movement and other extremists," he said, by way of explaining the Kyrgyzstan government's decision.
It's not clear whether we should take this statement at face value. Were Churchill alive for Putin's Russia, he surely would have added a couple extra layers of inscrutability to the "riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma" line. The second part of Churchill's quote, though, is less often remembered: "But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest." Russia has apparently decided that thwarting the US military presence in Central Asia is now more in its interest than supporting the US in Afghanistan.
But Kyrgyzstan should be able to stand up to Russian threats or bribery, as long as it has a little backup. What the US showed in Georgia, though, is that in the end Kyrgyzstan is on its own.
[Joshua Kucera: The real reason the US is being evicted from its airbase in Kyrgyzstan] This article was first published on guardian.co.uk at 15.00 GMT on Thursday 5 February 2009. It was last updated at 15.00 GMT on Thursday 5 February 2009.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
The old arguments about the difficulty for the Russian- Soviet empires to define "where to stop" in their dealings with their frontiers seem still relevant; there are few natural boundaries eastward from the Russian metropol, and there is a continual worry about what can develop on the frontiers. Prudence under such conditions suggests that it is wise to address frontier issues aggressively before they threaten the integrity of the system, given that it is already threatened by many internal faultlines. For an empire that stands on feet of clay, geography still matters, even in this post-modern world -- and thus, geopolitics.
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 February 2009 15.00 GMT
Kyrgyzstan shows US the door, by Joshua Kuceea
More than a rent dispute, America's eviction from a key military base is fallout from Russia's fight with Georgia
The war between Russia and Georgia last summer has claimed another victim: the US airbase in Kyrgyzstan.
The details of the US's apparent ejection from its only remaining base in ex-Soviet Central Asia remain murky, but initial reports suggest that the US was simply outbid by Russia. Russia offered a $2bn aid package to Kyrgyzstan, and the US's $150m annual payments to Kyrgyzstan suddenly looked pretty paltry. Underscoring the point, the president of Kyrgyzstan made the announcement not at home, but while on a trip to Moscow.
So it's tempting to write this off as bazaar politics. But the seeds for this move were sown last August in Georgia, when the US failed to do anything substantial to support its close ally in its war against Russia. Georgia, remember, sent a quarter of its armed forces to Iraq, despite the presence of two festering conflicts on its own soil, solely to curry favour with the US. It enacted free-market economic reforms so quickly, and in spite of significant social dislocation, that it was named the top reforming country in the world by the World Bank.
So when Georgia went to war with Russia and the US stood by, it sent a strong signal to the rest of America's would-be allies in the former Soviet Union. (Remember also, while it's now clear that Georgia and Russia were both culpable for that war breaking out, as soon as fighting started US officials immediately blamed Russia.) If the US isn't going to defend Georgia, would it defend Azerbaijan, or Ukraine or Kazakhstan?
Kyrgyzstan has apparently answered that question for itself by jettisoning the Americans in favour of Russia. The US base has been controversial in Kyrgyzstan. There were disputes over fuel dumping, the shooting of a Kyrgyzstan citizen by an American base guard and the rent paid by the Americans. In 2007, Kyrgyzstan raised the rent from $2m a year to about $63m a year, and the US provides a total aid package to the country of about $150m a year. While Kyrgyzstan officials frequently complained about the base, US officials believed it was just a bargaining technique, intended to drive up the price. (Russia has its own airbase in Kyrgyzstan, for which it pays no rent.)
I was in Kyrgyzstan about 18 months ago, and one diplomat told me: "I don't think Kyrgyzstan is interested in driving out the base. … The US is providing about $150m a year in aid, and they have to expect that if the airbase leaves some of that will disappear, and Russia and China won't be able to compensate for it." Well, Russia has called America's bluff, again.
The base is a supply hub for US operations in Afghanistan, and the implications of its closure on the US effort there would likely be dire. The US has already been kicked out of one base in Central Asia, the Karshi-Khanabad air base in Uzbekistan. And the US – about to double its footprint in Afghanistan – was already struggling to figure out how to get the extra supplies there, even before Kyrgyzstan's announcement.
Which makes the apparent Russian hand behind this move all the more puzzling. Conventional wisdom about the base said that Russia, while occasionally complaining about it in public, privately wanted it to stay. Russia was just as afraid of Islamist extremism as was the US, this logic went, and was perfectly happy to have the US spending its blood and treasure defeating the Taliban.
According to Russia's Nato representative, that logic has now been reversed, arguing that the US presence in Afghanistan is actually fomenting instability there: "Americans' failure in Afghanistan is creating a bigger threat to neighbouring countries. Military actions, which are being aimed against civilians, helped those who were not going to take sides with the Taliban movement and other extremists," he said, by way of explaining the Kyrgyzstan government's decision.
It's not clear whether we should take this statement at face value. Were Churchill alive for Putin's Russia, he surely would have added a couple extra layers of inscrutability to the "riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma" line. The second part of Churchill's quote, though, is less often remembered: "But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest." Russia has apparently decided that thwarting the US military presence in Central Asia is now more in its interest than supporting the US in Afghanistan.
But Kyrgyzstan should be able to stand up to Russian threats or bribery, as long as it has a little backup. What the US showed in Georgia, though, is that in the end Kyrgyzstan is on its own.
[Joshua Kucera: The real reason the US is being evicted from its airbase in Kyrgyzstan] This article was first published on guardian.co.uk at 15.00 GMT on Thursday 5 February 2009. It was last updated at 15.00 GMT on Thursday 5 February 2009.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Swat's descent into chaos
The Pakistani government -- which is essentially the army and the civilians it has deigned to allow to hold office -- has been claiming to fight extremists for many years but the practice seems so different from the claims that one wonders if anything the Pakistan government says could be true. The harder they claim to be fighting extremism the stronger the extremists become. Shame. In the mean time there are many diligent and brilliant Pakistani journalists who have to put up with the double-dealing and distortions of truth that the army leaders have become notorious for. Until there is an attempt at honesty by the army of Pakistan the whole region is at risk, including the army itself. Here is BAsim Usmani in the Guardian on the topic. [Thanks to my friend S. for sending this to me.]
Taliban militants have taken the Swat valley in Pakistan – why is the
country turning a blind eye?
Basim Usmani Wednesday 4 February 2009 20.00
Swat, once a resort for Pakistanis on holiday, has fallen to the Taliban. The battle for Swat began in 2007, while the country was distracted by ongoing operations in the tribally administered northern areas and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Now, President Zardari's preoccupation with the Mumbai attacks has given the militants in Swat, Tehreek-e-Taliban, a chance to rap up their bombing campaign of girls' schools.
The Tehreek has blow up 170 girls' schools in Swat to date. Oblivious to Swat's descent into chaos, the government has been busy cracking down on Jamat-ud-Dawa, the humanitarian organisation that operates allegedly with militia in Kashmir, in a series of enthusiastic measures to abate Indian pressure post-Mumbai.
A week ago, the government took control of Jamat-ud-Dawa's public schools in their headquarters in Muridke, a small pit-stop city economically dependent on neighboring Lahore, the capital of Punjab. The Dawa's influence is striking: truckers coming through on the "Grand Truck Road" found no cigarettes or chewing tobacco, which have been banned from sale in accordance with the organisation's edicts.
Despite Jamat-ud-Dawa's standing, the protest that accompanied the government's takeover only consisted of peaceful faculty staff and students. There were no death threats issued to prominent politicians in Punjab and administrators of the Dawa's school system and adjacent hospital expressed hope that the change of heads would lead to more financial support from the government.
Interestingly, this is after the government handed over all girls' schools in the Swat valley to the Taliban, after being complicit to the militant's 15 January ban on female education. Currently, the "third phase" of military operations in Swat is taking place and live coverage of the military battling the Tehreek-e-Taliban is hopefully going to highlight the urgency of the situation. The military got wise to the media attention and the chiefs of the army, navy and air force held a meeting bright and early on Sunday morning where they praised their "operational readiness".
Sadly, this readiness was nowhere to be found a week ago when the body of Pir Samiullah, a famous Swati and government loyalist who was purportedly encouraged by the military to organise a lashkar (independent army), was killed by the Taliban. After discovering the grave where Samiullah's family secretly buried him, the Taliban exhumed his body and hung it from a major crossing in the area. Before that, the vice-president of the Awami National Party (the party with a majority in the North West Frontier Province, where Swat is located) was kidnapped and killed. Maulana Fazlullah, an influential Taliban spokesman, issued death threats over his pirate radio station that broadcasts throughout the valley, naming 40 politicians, who have mostly fled the valley.
Fazlullah warned of an army of suicide bombers to attack the Pakistani state if military operations continue, something that could find Zardari back-pedalling to the government's position last May, when Asif handed over the valley to the Taliban to enforce their version of sharia law in return for a ceasefire. The Taliban then got organised, set up parallel courts and a brutal police force that has turned Swat into Kabul circa 2001. The spokesman for the military Major General Athar Abbas still blames the Taliban for flubbing up the May ceasefire. Those pesky Talibans, they always surprise you!
This inability to promptly drive the radicals out of Swat is reminiscent of Musharraf's sluggish six-day siege of the Red Mosque. The militants began like those in Swat, with warnings against "un-Islamic" activities such as vending DVDs or being dressed inappropriately. In Islamabad's case, the veiled and stick-wielding Jamia Hafza threatened transgressors with violence. Then they occupied a library, issuing edicts and promising suicide bombing. The government then waited for the group, which included many misguided teenage religious students, to set up a fortress in Lal Masjid, which had been stockpiled with weapons since the 80s by its imam, Maulana Abdul Aziz. When the siege was one day in, the country went into mourning. Musharraf's drawn out Operation Silence gave the media ample time to project the human interest angle of a mosque filled with misguided religious students under fire. If the Swat operation continues to be as fumbling, with the 12,000 troops deployed there continuing to accrue their civilian death count in search of 3,000 fanatics, the Zardari government will be disgraced as Musharraf was. And a war of sentiments is what the fanatics are waging.
The public has not protested Swat yet. The only people who have protested are residents of Swat when children there were killed in crossfire and police opened fire on them. In place of the Taliban in Swat, people in every district of Lahore have protested the Israeli assault on Gaza. Shortly after Gaza was struck, the sectarian Imamia Students Organisation held a 3,000-strong protest down Mall Road, with posters of Hezbollah and Nasrullah on proud display. Some time last week, heavily made-up and westernised college students became a common sight at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which were taking place multiple times a day. It seems popular to pick up Palestine the way Darfour became the issue of choice for university students three years ago.
After the government took control of Jamat-ud-Dawa's school system in Muridke, the charity office they ran in Lahore was replaced. The new name for what was the Dawa office is Tehreek-e-Tahafouz-e-Qibla-Awal, and instead of collecting donations for Pakistani mujahideen they are asking for money for Gaza. Ostensibly, the office is run by the same people. Somehow Gaza remains a more passionate issue than Swat, which has yet to see any aid offered to its residents. Why are Pakistanis turning a blind eye? Is it because those who are killing Muslims in Swat claim to be Muslims themselves? Or is it because Lahoris are scared to speak up because they're scared of being blown up?
If it's the fear of being blown up that decides what Pakistanis do, then they can expect to do a lot less in the future. Bombs recently blew up outside al-Falah cinema, where Punjabi stage shows are held on Lahore's Mall Road. Before that, the World Performing Arts Festival, three juice stalls and the only Punjabi-language radio station were hit by bombs. And don't think Lahore, or any city in Pakistan, can't be host to a Lal Masjid-esque debacle. In October, CD and DVD vendors in the main electronics market on Hall Road already enforced a ban on the sale of "inappropriate CDs" in accordance with an edict sent from local Islamists.
Lahore isn't any less likely a target for the Taliban than Swat is. Maulana Fazlullah has already promised a new army of suicide bombers – words it looks like he will make good on. Lahoris need to speak out on behalf of Swatis living under the Taliban because they may need someone to speak out for themselves soon.
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
Taliban militants have taken the Swat valley in Pakistan – why is the
country turning a blind eye?
Basim Usmani Wednesday 4 February 2009 20.00
Swat, once a resort for Pakistanis on holiday, has fallen to the Taliban. The battle for Swat began in 2007, while the country was distracted by ongoing operations in the tribally administered northern areas and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Now, President Zardari's preoccupation with the Mumbai attacks has given the militants in Swat, Tehreek-e-Taliban, a chance to rap up their bombing campaign of girls' schools.
The Tehreek has blow up 170 girls' schools in Swat to date. Oblivious to Swat's descent into chaos, the government has been busy cracking down on Jamat-ud-Dawa, the humanitarian organisation that operates allegedly with militia in Kashmir, in a series of enthusiastic measures to abate Indian pressure post-Mumbai.
A week ago, the government took control of Jamat-ud-Dawa's public schools in their headquarters in Muridke, a small pit-stop city economically dependent on neighboring Lahore, the capital of Punjab. The Dawa's influence is striking: truckers coming through on the "Grand Truck Road" found no cigarettes or chewing tobacco, which have been banned from sale in accordance with the organisation's edicts.
Despite Jamat-ud-Dawa's standing, the protest that accompanied the government's takeover only consisted of peaceful faculty staff and students. There were no death threats issued to prominent politicians in Punjab and administrators of the Dawa's school system and adjacent hospital expressed hope that the change of heads would lead to more financial support from the government.
Interestingly, this is after the government handed over all girls' schools in the Swat valley to the Taliban, after being complicit to the militant's 15 January ban on female education. Currently, the "third phase" of military operations in Swat is taking place and live coverage of the military battling the Tehreek-e-Taliban is hopefully going to highlight the urgency of the situation. The military got wise to the media attention and the chiefs of the army, navy and air force held a meeting bright and early on Sunday morning where they praised their "operational readiness".
Sadly, this readiness was nowhere to be found a week ago when the body of Pir Samiullah, a famous Swati and government loyalist who was purportedly encouraged by the military to organise a lashkar (independent army), was killed by the Taliban. After discovering the grave where Samiullah's family secretly buried him, the Taliban exhumed his body and hung it from a major crossing in the area. Before that, the vice-president of the Awami National Party (the party with a majority in the North West Frontier Province, where Swat is located) was kidnapped and killed. Maulana Fazlullah, an influential Taliban spokesman, issued death threats over his pirate radio station that broadcasts throughout the valley, naming 40 politicians, who have mostly fled the valley.
Fazlullah warned of an army of suicide bombers to attack the Pakistani state if military operations continue, something that could find Zardari back-pedalling to the government's position last May, when Asif handed over the valley to the Taliban to enforce their version of sharia law in return for a ceasefire. The Taliban then got organised, set up parallel courts and a brutal police force that has turned Swat into Kabul circa 2001. The spokesman for the military Major General Athar Abbas still blames the Taliban for flubbing up the May ceasefire. Those pesky Talibans, they always surprise you!
This inability to promptly drive the radicals out of Swat is reminiscent of Musharraf's sluggish six-day siege of the Red Mosque. The militants began like those in Swat, with warnings against "un-Islamic" activities such as vending DVDs or being dressed inappropriately. In Islamabad's case, the veiled and stick-wielding Jamia Hafza threatened transgressors with violence. Then they occupied a library, issuing edicts and promising suicide bombing. The government then waited for the group, which included many misguided teenage religious students, to set up a fortress in Lal Masjid, which had been stockpiled with weapons since the 80s by its imam, Maulana Abdul Aziz. When the siege was one day in, the country went into mourning. Musharraf's drawn out Operation Silence gave the media ample time to project the human interest angle of a mosque filled with misguided religious students under fire. If the Swat operation continues to be as fumbling, with the 12,000 troops deployed there continuing to accrue their civilian death count in search of 3,000 fanatics, the Zardari government will be disgraced as Musharraf was. And a war of sentiments is what the fanatics are waging.
The public has not protested Swat yet. The only people who have protested are residents of Swat when children there were killed in crossfire and police opened fire on them. In place of the Taliban in Swat, people in every district of Lahore have protested the Israeli assault on Gaza. Shortly after Gaza was struck, the sectarian Imamia Students Organisation held a 3,000-strong protest down Mall Road, with posters of Hezbollah and Nasrullah on proud display. Some time last week, heavily made-up and westernised college students became a common sight at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which were taking place multiple times a day. It seems popular to pick up Palestine the way Darfour became the issue of choice for university students three years ago.
After the government took control of Jamat-ud-Dawa's school system in Muridke, the charity office they ran in Lahore was replaced. The new name for what was the Dawa office is Tehreek-e-Tahafouz-e-Qibla-Awal, and instead of collecting donations for Pakistani mujahideen they are asking for money for Gaza. Ostensibly, the office is run by the same people. Somehow Gaza remains a more passionate issue than Swat, which has yet to see any aid offered to its residents. Why are Pakistanis turning a blind eye? Is it because those who are killing Muslims in Swat claim to be Muslims themselves? Or is it because Lahoris are scared to speak up because they're scared of being blown up?
If it's the fear of being blown up that decides what Pakistanis do, then they can expect to do a lot less in the future. Bombs recently blew up outside al-Falah cinema, where Punjabi stage shows are held on Lahore's Mall Road. Before that, the World Performing Arts Festival, three juice stalls and the only Punjabi-language radio station were hit by bombs. And don't think Lahore, or any city in Pakistan, can't be host to a Lal Masjid-esque debacle. In October, CD and DVD vendors in the main electronics market on Hall Road already enforced a ban on the sale of "inappropriate CDs" in accordance with an edict sent from local Islamists.
Lahore isn't any less likely a target for the Taliban than Swat is. Maulana Fazlullah has already promised a new army of suicide bombers – words it looks like he will make good on. Lahoris need to speak out on behalf of Swatis living under the Taliban because they may need someone to speak out for themselves soon.
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Problems of access into and out of Afghanistan
To the bombing of a crucial bridge in Khybar is added the closing of the Manas Air Base in Kyrghyzstan. And along with that is the Russian posturing over American influence in Central Asia. All this threatens the American project in Afghanistan at a time when the situation seems ever more precarious.
But there are even other reasons to be concerned about Afghanistan. To me, one of the most worrying aspects of the situation is the conflicting opinions of "experts" claiming to know what to do about Afghanistan: We need to add more troops, says one; we need to reduce our troop presence, says another (George Friedman in today's New York Times); Afghanistan isn't worth it anyways, says another; it's very important according to others [like me]; anyway it's the graveyard of empires, some say (we just heard a list of such cliches on Bill Moyers' PBS show the other night).
I distrust the cliches: Instead I hope the American project in Afghanistan and Pakistan is taken on seriously, professionally, as a long term commitment to these ever more strategic countries. There is no other way.
Come to think of it, that's another reason to worry: For the Americans have rarely made that kind of commitment to far-away places.
Below is McClatchy's report on the problem of supplying the American/ European war in Afghanistan. [at http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/61394.htm today]
McClatchy Washington Bureau
U.S. supply routes to Afghanistan suffer two huge blows
By Tom Lasseter and Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers
February 03, 2009 07:59:35 PM
MOSCOW — The U.S.-led campaign against the Taliban suffered two logistical blows Tuesday as the president of Kyrgyzstan announced that he'd shut a U.S. airbase in his country and insurgents in Pakistan blew up a bridge, disrupting the main U.S. supply route into Afghanistan.
The developments were the latest reminders of the vulnerability of the long and complex transportation system on which the 60,000 U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan depend for fuel, ammunition, construction materials and a great deal more.
The announcement by Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev that he will close the Manas Air Base also gave President Barack Obama a first taste of the challenge he faces from Russia, which is trying to restore its clout in countries that were part of the former Soviet Union.
Bakiyev made his announcement in Moscow, not in his own capital, shortly after the Russian government reportedly agreed to lend Kyrgyzstan $2 billion, write off $180 million in debt and add another $150 million in aid. The timing and place of the announcement indicated the Kremlin's involvement.
"It's a direct challenge to the new American administration. Russia is going out of its way to close an American base," said Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based military analyst.
Manas is the main transit point through which U.S. troops fly into and out of Afghanistan. As such, it is vital to plans to send 30,000 more American troops to stabilize Afghanistan. A U.S. Air Force Web site calls it "the premier air-mobility hub" for U.S. and allied operations in Afghanistan, with about 1,000 military personnel from America, Spain and France stationed there.
A senior U.S. military official said the U.S. military hopes Bakiyev's decision is not final but is the latest gambit in what has been a lengthy effort to squeeze more money out of Washington.
"There is a long list of things that he wants, some of which we can't do, like debt relief, relieving the debt he owes other governments," said the U.S. military official. "The bottom line, we hope, is that this is simply a card being played as part of the negotiating process. Obviously, we don't want to lose Manas."
Another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Bakiyev had been trying to play the U.S. off against Russia for months in order to secure more funds. The official could not be identified by name because he was unauthorized to speak to reporters.
The U.S. has been paying Kyrgyzstan about $63 million a year to use Manas. The money is part of some $150 million in annual direct and indirect U.S. aid.
Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, said senior Kyrgyz officials had assured him that there were no discussions between the country and Russia about closing the base in exchange for aid.
The senior U.S. military official said the base is also used to "bed down" U.S. tanker aircraft used for mid-aid refueling operations over Afghanistan.
Bakiyev explained in Moscow that the decision had been made because "we have repeatedly raised with the U.S. the matter of economic compensation for the existence of the base in Kyrgyzstan, but we have not been understood," Russian media reported.
Bakiyev said that after the base opened in 2001 the understanding was that "it was one or two years that were being talked about. Eight years have passed."
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 touched off 30 years of war, and Moscow is again turning into a player in Afghan politics. Two days before Obama's inauguration, the Afghan government said that Russia had accepted a request from President Hamid Karzai for military aid.
And last month, the Kremlin said it would open transportation lines through Russia to Afghanistan to help U.S. forces circumvent the violence-plagued route across the Pakistani border.
Although he didn't cite the base closing, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made a point of saying in Moscow that Kyrgyzstan and Russia "are open to coordinated action" with the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.
Analyst Felgenhauer said the message from the two actions was clear: The Kremlin is willing to help the American military in Afghanistan, but only on the condition that the U.S. recognizes its authority in central Asia.
Or, more simply put, "we will not allow their bases in our sphere of influence," said Felgenhauer, a critic of Kremlin policy.
In Pakistan, meanwhile, Islamic insurgents allied with the Taliban blew up a bridge in the Khyber Pass, disrupting one of two truck routes from the port of Karachi by which U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan receive about 80 percent of their supplies.
(Landay reported from Washington.)
But there are even other reasons to be concerned about Afghanistan. To me, one of the most worrying aspects of the situation is the conflicting opinions of "experts" claiming to know what to do about Afghanistan: We need to add more troops, says one; we need to reduce our troop presence, says another (George Friedman in today's New York Times); Afghanistan isn't worth it anyways, says another; it's very important according to others [like me]; anyway it's the graveyard of empires, some say (we just heard a list of such cliches on Bill Moyers' PBS show the other night).
I distrust the cliches: Instead I hope the American project in Afghanistan and Pakistan is taken on seriously, professionally, as a long term commitment to these ever more strategic countries. There is no other way.
Come to think of it, that's another reason to worry: For the Americans have rarely made that kind of commitment to far-away places.
Below is McClatchy's report on the problem of supplying the American/ European war in Afghanistan. [at http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/61394.htm today]
McClatchy Washington Bureau
U.S. supply routes to Afghanistan suffer two huge blows
By Tom Lasseter and Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers
February 03, 2009 07:59:35 PM
MOSCOW — The U.S.-led campaign against the Taliban suffered two logistical blows Tuesday as the president of Kyrgyzstan announced that he'd shut a U.S. airbase in his country and insurgents in Pakistan blew up a bridge, disrupting the main U.S. supply route into Afghanistan.
The developments were the latest reminders of the vulnerability of the long and complex transportation system on which the 60,000 U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan depend for fuel, ammunition, construction materials and a great deal more.
The announcement by Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev that he will close the Manas Air Base also gave President Barack Obama a first taste of the challenge he faces from Russia, which is trying to restore its clout in countries that were part of the former Soviet Union.
Bakiyev made his announcement in Moscow, not in his own capital, shortly after the Russian government reportedly agreed to lend Kyrgyzstan $2 billion, write off $180 million in debt and add another $150 million in aid. The timing and place of the announcement indicated the Kremlin's involvement.
"It's a direct challenge to the new American administration. Russia is going out of its way to close an American base," said Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based military analyst.
Manas is the main transit point through which U.S. troops fly into and out of Afghanistan. As such, it is vital to plans to send 30,000 more American troops to stabilize Afghanistan. A U.S. Air Force Web site calls it "the premier air-mobility hub" for U.S. and allied operations in Afghanistan, with about 1,000 military personnel from America, Spain and France stationed there.
A senior U.S. military official said the U.S. military hopes Bakiyev's decision is not final but is the latest gambit in what has been a lengthy effort to squeeze more money out of Washington.
"There is a long list of things that he wants, some of which we can't do, like debt relief, relieving the debt he owes other governments," said the U.S. military official. "The bottom line, we hope, is that this is simply a card being played as part of the negotiating process. Obviously, we don't want to lose Manas."
Another U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Bakiyev had been trying to play the U.S. off against Russia for months in order to secure more funds. The official could not be identified by name because he was unauthorized to speak to reporters.
The U.S. has been paying Kyrgyzstan about $63 million a year to use Manas. The money is part of some $150 million in annual direct and indirect U.S. aid.
Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, said senior Kyrgyz officials had assured him that there were no discussions between the country and Russia about closing the base in exchange for aid.
The senior U.S. military official said the base is also used to "bed down" U.S. tanker aircraft used for mid-aid refueling operations over Afghanistan.
Bakiyev explained in Moscow that the decision had been made because "we have repeatedly raised with the U.S. the matter of economic compensation for the existence of the base in Kyrgyzstan, but we have not been understood," Russian media reported.
Bakiyev said that after the base opened in 2001 the understanding was that "it was one or two years that were being talked about. Eight years have passed."
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 touched off 30 years of war, and Moscow is again turning into a player in Afghan politics. Two days before Obama's inauguration, the Afghan government said that Russia had accepted a request from President Hamid Karzai for military aid.
And last month, the Kremlin said it would open transportation lines through Russia to Afghanistan to help U.S. forces circumvent the violence-plagued route across the Pakistani border.
Although he didn't cite the base closing, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev made a point of saying in Moscow that Kyrgyzstan and Russia "are open to coordinated action" with the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan.
Analyst Felgenhauer said the message from the two actions was clear: The Kremlin is willing to help the American military in Afghanistan, but only on the condition that the U.S. recognizes its authority in central Asia.
Or, more simply put, "we will not allow their bases in our sphere of influence," said Felgenhauer, a critic of Kremlin policy.
In Pakistan, meanwhile, Islamic insurgents allied with the Taliban blew up a bridge in the Khyber Pass, disrupting one of two truck routes from the port of Karachi by which U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan receive about 80 percent of their supplies.
(Landay reported from Washington.)
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Uzbek electricty to Kabul
News that Uzbekistan is supplying electricity to Afghanistan is important. MOre sign that the infrastructural relations are getting established, so far.
Reuters India reports:
Afghans see capital city in a new light
Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:04pm IST
By Jonathon Burch
KABUL (Reuters) - For most people in the Afghan capital Kabul, electricity used to be something of a luxury, but thanks to neighbouring Uzbekistan many homes now enjoy almost uninterrupted power.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. Three decades of war have destroyed what little infrastructure existed and, despite millions of dollars of aid, progress has been slow.
Only about 7 percent of the country's population has access to electricity, according to 2007 government figures, and Afghan energy distribution ranks among the lowest in the world at under 20 kWh per capita.
But a new power line from Uzbekistan began transmitting electricity to Kabul less than a week ago as part of an Afghan long-term energy development strategy.
"Five days ago we started receiving 20 MW (megawatts) from Uzbekistan and today we will start receiving another 20 MW," Engineer Wahid Qayum, in charge of electricity provision for the entire country, told Reuters.
"We are now able to provide 180 MW of power to Kabul at peak times, and 160 MW at other times," Qayum said.
The total still falls well short of the 300 MW that Kabul needs, but the new transmission line, jointly funded by India and the Asian Development Bank, will gradually increase output over the next couple of months, Qayum said.
In two months the new line is expected to deliver 150 MW of power, 120 MW of which will be allocated to Kabul and the remaining 30 MW to the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
"In two months, all of Kabul will have 24-hour electricity," Qayum said.
"LIGHTER AND BRIGHTER"
While some homes in the city are still without electricity and others are subject to power cuts because of load sharing agreements, the increase in power has already made a difference to many ordinary Afghans.
Rohullah, a television shop owner in Kabul's central shopping district, told Reuters sales had never been better.
"Business has increased by 50 percent in the last five days," said a smiling Rohullah. "I used to sell two or three televisions a day. For the last few days I have sold four to five a day."
Abdul Hafiz and his wife, wearing her all-enveloping burqa, stand outside one of the many shops with their newly bought 17-inch colour television.
"We had a black and white television but now we came to buy a colour one because we have more electricity," said Hafiz. Asked what the increased electricity supply means to him, he says he is very happy.
"Electricity is very important for us. Everywhere is getting brighter and lighter. I only hope the security situation will also get brighter," he said.
Sayed Najib, however, sits alone among the bustling television shops, his head leaning against the wall of his store -- which sells electric generators.
"Business has decreased, maybe by 80 percent," said Najib. "I think in the future I'll start selling televisions."
© Thomson Reuters 2008. All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters and its logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Thomson Reuters group of companies around the world.
Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
Reuters India reports:
Afghans see capital city in a new light
Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:04pm IST
By Jonathon Burch
KABUL (Reuters) - For most people in the Afghan capital Kabul, electricity used to be something of a luxury, but thanks to neighbouring Uzbekistan many homes now enjoy almost uninterrupted power.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. Three decades of war have destroyed what little infrastructure existed and, despite millions of dollars of aid, progress has been slow.
Only about 7 percent of the country's population has access to electricity, according to 2007 government figures, and Afghan energy distribution ranks among the lowest in the world at under 20 kWh per capita.
But a new power line from Uzbekistan began transmitting electricity to Kabul less than a week ago as part of an Afghan long-term energy development strategy.
"Five days ago we started receiving 20 MW (megawatts) from Uzbekistan and today we will start receiving another 20 MW," Engineer Wahid Qayum, in charge of electricity provision for the entire country, told Reuters.
"We are now able to provide 180 MW of power to Kabul at peak times, and 160 MW at other times," Qayum said.
The total still falls well short of the 300 MW that Kabul needs, but the new transmission line, jointly funded by India and the Asian Development Bank, will gradually increase output over the next couple of months, Qayum said.
In two months the new line is expected to deliver 150 MW of power, 120 MW of which will be allocated to Kabul and the remaining 30 MW to the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
"In two months, all of Kabul will have 24-hour electricity," Qayum said.
"LIGHTER AND BRIGHTER"
While some homes in the city are still without electricity and others are subject to power cuts because of load sharing agreements, the increase in power has already made a difference to many ordinary Afghans.
Rohullah, a television shop owner in Kabul's central shopping district, told Reuters sales had never been better.
"Business has increased by 50 percent in the last five days," said a smiling Rohullah. "I used to sell two or three televisions a day. For the last few days I have sold four to five a day."
Abdul Hafiz and his wife, wearing her all-enveloping burqa, stand outside one of the many shops with their newly bought 17-inch colour television.
"We had a black and white television but now we came to buy a colour one because we have more electricity," said Hafiz. Asked what the increased electricity supply means to him, he says he is very happy.
"Electricity is very important for us. Everywhere is getting brighter and lighter. I only hope the security situation will also get brighter," he said.
Sayed Najib, however, sits alone among the bustling television shops, his head leaning against the wall of his store -- which sells electric generators.
"Business has decreased, maybe by 80 percent," said Najib. "I think in the future I'll start selling televisions."
© Thomson Reuters 2008. All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters and its logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Thomson Reuters group of companies around the world.
Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
A fine for reporting the story
Good News? No jail time for journalists who reported things the government didn't want reported, but instead a fine. It's better than jail time, but the fine has the impact of chilling any further reporting of that kind. For those who seek to report on the world as they find it, it is a dangerous neighborhood.
NYTimes: February 1, 2009
Egypt Court Says No Jail for 4 Editors
By REUTERS
CAIRO (Reuters) — An Egyptian appeals court on Saturday overturned prison sentences given to four editors in 2007 for defaming senior members of Egypt’s ruling party, including the president and his son, judiciary officials said.
But the court in Cairo ruled that each newspaper editor must pay a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds, or almost $3,600, the officials said.
A lower court had sentenced the editors to a year in prison for publishing several articles that it thought damaged the reputations of the president and members of the governing National Democratic Party.
That decision was one of several in recent years that have come close to putting prominent journalists behind bars on publishing offenses.
The 2007 convictions also signaled an escalation of what political analysts describe as a campaign by the National Democratic Party against independent newspapers that have reported that President Hosni Mubarak is grooming his son Gamal to succeed him. Both father and son deny that.
The editors in this case — Ibrahim Issa, Adel Hammouda, Wael el-Ebrashi and Abdel-Halim Qandil — had remained free on bail pending their appeals.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
NYTimes: February 1, 2009
Egypt Court Says No Jail for 4 Editors
By REUTERS
CAIRO (Reuters) — An Egyptian appeals court on Saturday overturned prison sentences given to four editors in 2007 for defaming senior members of Egypt’s ruling party, including the president and his son, judiciary officials said.
But the court in Cairo ruled that each newspaper editor must pay a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds, or almost $3,600, the officials said.
A lower court had sentenced the editors to a year in prison for publishing several articles that it thought damaged the reputations of the president and members of the governing National Democratic Party.
That decision was one of several in recent years that have come close to putting prominent journalists behind bars on publishing offenses.
The 2007 convictions also signaled an escalation of what political analysts describe as a campaign by the National Democratic Party against independent newspapers that have reported that President Hosni Mubarak is grooming his son Gamal to succeed him. Both father and son deny that.
The editors in this case — Ibrahim Issa, Adel Hammouda, Wael el-Ebrashi and Abdel-Halim Qandil — had remained free on bail pending their appeals.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
A Murder to Silence Exposure of Chechnyan Government Brutality
Today's report in the New York Times on the murder of Umar S. Israilov, who had revealed how brutally prisoners are treated by President Kadyrov of Chechnya, himself a creation of the Russians, reveals much that both the Russians and the Chechnyans would not want known. For this kind of journalism, in which those who tell the truth are at risk, we can all be thankful.
Kadyrov needs to present an image of legitimacy, as if his government were duly elected but in practice they were simply using the same old time tested means, torture and murder.
This is why the legitimation of physical brutality by an American government is a shame and an embarrassment; we cannot feign horror at such behavior and practice ourselves. Thankfully, this administration is taking the right measures to extricate our country from a reputation for such practice.
[Click on the title for the link to this important article.]
Kadyrov needs to present an image of legitimacy, as if his government were duly elected but in practice they were simply using the same old time tested means, torture and murder.
This is why the legitimation of physical brutality by an American government is a shame and an embarrassment; we cannot feign horror at such behavior and practice ourselves. Thankfully, this administration is taking the right measures to extricate our country from a reputation for such practice.
[Click on the title for the link to this important article.]
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Russia's Strategic Location for both Europe and the Far East
Today's article on Putin's commitment to build Russia's future on its ability to control the energy resources to Europe seems to me significant. In a sense Putin has limited options, but the one he has, the fossil fuels of Russia and Central Asia, is powerful leverage. Discussions of the topic so far seem to be about the provision of energy to Europe, but as China grows it will also demand huge amounts of energy; we know the Chinese have already been busy establishing connections withe the oil and gas rich Central Asian states. So, Russia and the neighboring states over which Russia will continue to be hegemonic are strategically situated for the future.
It is hard to see how the great populations of Eurasia cannot become desperately dependent on the Russian/Central Asian consortium, which controls the gas and oil fields critical to both ends of the continent. As much as I respect Parag Khanna's ideas about the future trends for the world (see his Second World), I think he mistakenly writes off Russia, noting its population problems. No matter how few people live in northern Eurasia, that area will be the energy source for billions of people.
Here I merely quote from a few statements in the article. [Click on the title for the link to the source.]
NYTimes January 29, 2009
Putin’s Grasp of Energy Drives Russian Agenda
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
. . . from his earliest days in power in 2000, Mr. Putin, who left the presidency in 2008 and became prime minister, decided natural resource exports and energy in particular would not only finance the country’s economic rebirth but also help restore Russia’s lost greatness after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
. . . he ordered natural gas shut off to Ukraine, in the process cutting supplies to Europe. It was portrayed by the Kremlin as a protracted commercial dispute with Ukraine. But the hundreds of thousands of shivering gas customers in the Balkans and Eastern Europe sent an unmistakable message about the Continent’s reliance on Russian supplies — and Mr. Putin’s willingness to wield energy as a political weapon.
. . . In fact, the standoff in Ukraine was just one part of a far larger Russian playbook on natural gas policy under Mr. Putin. In the past year, Russia has formed a cartel-like group with Middle Eastern nations with the goal of dampening global competition in natural gas, sewn up sources of supply in Central Asia and North Africa with long-term contracts to thwart competitors and used its military to occupy an important pipeline route in Georgia.
. . .
“He has been thinking for some time, ‘What are the means and tools at Russia’s disposal, to make Russia great?’ ” said Lilia Shevtsova, a researcher at the Carnegie Moscow Center. In the post-Soviet world, she said, Mr. Putin concluded that “military power would no longer be sufficient.”
. . . A spokesman for Mr. Putin, Dmitri S. Peskov, said that the energy market “was, is and will remain a strategic sphere for Russia”
. . . In this contest, Russia’s overarching goal is to prevent the West from breaking a monopoly on natural gas pipelines from Asia to Europe. Boris E. Nemtsov, a former Russian first deputy prime minister who is now in the opposition, said: “It is the typical behavior of the monopolist. The monopolist fears competition.”
. . . The Nabucco pipeline was proposed in 2002 by executives from European energy companies with the express intent of undercutting Russia’s gas monopoly. It would pass through Turkey and Georgia to the Caspian Sea.
Under the best of circumstances, building an international pipeline is an intricate and arduous process, technically, financially and politically. However, Nabucco’s planners rapidly discovered that their biggest obstacle was not a mountain chain or a corrupt local politician, but Mr. Putin himself. When OMV, the Austrian energy company, formally created a consortium for Nabucco in 2005, he responded with a competing idea: a pipeline called South Stream that would terminate at the same gas storage site in Austria, but originate in Russia and bypass Ukraine by traveling under the Black Sea.
. . .
To pay the hefty upfront construction costs, a pipeline needs both an assured source of supply and a market for the gas it transports. The South Stream pipeline would flood the gas market in southeastern Europe, locking up the customers the bankers behind Nabucco were counting on to finance the project.
At the same time it would undermine Ukraine’s domination of gas lines headed west, one of the biggest obstacles to Russian domination of the European gas market.
But Mr. Putin did not stop there. Leaving nothing to chance, he also took steps to choke off potential sources of upstream gas supplies deep in Central Asia.
. . . While energy executives around the world rushed to Ashgabat, the Turkmen capital, to meet the new leader, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, a former dentist, Mr. Putin was the first to cut a big deal.
. . . Mr. Putin and Mr. Berdymukhammedov agreed in 2007 to build a pipeline north, to Russia, depriving Nabucco of potential supply. It was not until 2008 that European Union officials got to Ashgabat with a memorandum of understanding for a trans-Caspian pipeline that could link to Nabucco. . . .
The West still had an important pipeline partner in Georgia, a critical geographical link. But that all but evaporated in the brief war last summer.
By 2007, a pipeline section had been laid across Georgia, the Baku-Erzurum pipeline, which is now used for local distribution but will become a part of the Nabucco pipeline, if it is ever built. This brought the struggle for Nabucco to a pivotal stage, for it was now playing out along a storied trade route in the petroleum business, and one highly sensitive to the Russians.
. . .
The August war sent a chill through boardrooms in the West when, for example, Russian tanks scurried back and forth over one of the buried pipelines and one crew occupied a pumping station. Russia, said Svante Cornell, a specialist on Central Asia and the Caucasus at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, sent a simple message: “We can blow this up at any time.”
. . .
Despite its best intentions, Europe is likely to remain dependent on Russian energy supplies for the foreseeable future and, perhaps, indefinitely if Mr. Putin has his way. And that reflects his long-held beliefs.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
It is hard to see how the great populations of Eurasia cannot become desperately dependent on the Russian/Central Asian consortium, which controls the gas and oil fields critical to both ends of the continent. As much as I respect Parag Khanna's ideas about the future trends for the world (see his Second World), I think he mistakenly writes off Russia, noting its population problems. No matter how few people live in northern Eurasia, that area will be the energy source for billions of people.
Here I merely quote from a few statements in the article. [Click on the title for the link to the source.]
NYTimes January 29, 2009
Putin’s Grasp of Energy Drives Russian Agenda
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
. . . from his earliest days in power in 2000, Mr. Putin, who left the presidency in 2008 and became prime minister, decided natural resource exports and energy in particular would not only finance the country’s economic rebirth but also help restore Russia’s lost greatness after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
. . . he ordered natural gas shut off to Ukraine, in the process cutting supplies to Europe. It was portrayed by the Kremlin as a protracted commercial dispute with Ukraine. But the hundreds of thousands of shivering gas customers in the Balkans and Eastern Europe sent an unmistakable message about the Continent’s reliance on Russian supplies — and Mr. Putin’s willingness to wield energy as a political weapon.
. . . In fact, the standoff in Ukraine was just one part of a far larger Russian playbook on natural gas policy under Mr. Putin. In the past year, Russia has formed a cartel-like group with Middle Eastern nations with the goal of dampening global competition in natural gas, sewn up sources of supply in Central Asia and North Africa with long-term contracts to thwart competitors and used its military to occupy an important pipeline route in Georgia.
. . .
“He has been thinking for some time, ‘What are the means and tools at Russia’s disposal, to make Russia great?’ ” said Lilia Shevtsova, a researcher at the Carnegie Moscow Center. In the post-Soviet world, she said, Mr. Putin concluded that “military power would no longer be sufficient.”
. . . A spokesman for Mr. Putin, Dmitri S. Peskov, said that the energy market “was, is and will remain a strategic sphere for Russia”
. . . In this contest, Russia’s overarching goal is to prevent the West from breaking a monopoly on natural gas pipelines from Asia to Europe. Boris E. Nemtsov, a former Russian first deputy prime minister who is now in the opposition, said: “It is the typical behavior of the monopolist. The monopolist fears competition.”
. . . The Nabucco pipeline was proposed in 2002 by executives from European energy companies with the express intent of undercutting Russia’s gas monopoly. It would pass through Turkey and Georgia to the Caspian Sea.
Under the best of circumstances, building an international pipeline is an intricate and arduous process, technically, financially and politically. However, Nabucco’s planners rapidly discovered that their biggest obstacle was not a mountain chain or a corrupt local politician, but Mr. Putin himself. When OMV, the Austrian energy company, formally created a consortium for Nabucco in 2005, he responded with a competing idea: a pipeline called South Stream that would terminate at the same gas storage site in Austria, but originate in Russia and bypass Ukraine by traveling under the Black Sea.
. . .
To pay the hefty upfront construction costs, a pipeline needs both an assured source of supply and a market for the gas it transports. The South Stream pipeline would flood the gas market in southeastern Europe, locking up the customers the bankers behind Nabucco were counting on to finance the project.
At the same time it would undermine Ukraine’s domination of gas lines headed west, one of the biggest obstacles to Russian domination of the European gas market.
But Mr. Putin did not stop there. Leaving nothing to chance, he also took steps to choke off potential sources of upstream gas supplies deep in Central Asia.
. . . While energy executives around the world rushed to Ashgabat, the Turkmen capital, to meet the new leader, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, a former dentist, Mr. Putin was the first to cut a big deal.
. . . Mr. Putin and Mr. Berdymukhammedov agreed in 2007 to build a pipeline north, to Russia, depriving Nabucco of potential supply. It was not until 2008 that European Union officials got to Ashgabat with a memorandum of understanding for a trans-Caspian pipeline that could link to Nabucco. . . .
The West still had an important pipeline partner in Georgia, a critical geographical link. But that all but evaporated in the brief war last summer.
By 2007, a pipeline section had been laid across Georgia, the Baku-Erzurum pipeline, which is now used for local distribution but will become a part of the Nabucco pipeline, if it is ever built. This brought the struggle for Nabucco to a pivotal stage, for it was now playing out along a storied trade route in the petroleum business, and one highly sensitive to the Russians.
. . .
The August war sent a chill through boardrooms in the West when, for example, Russian tanks scurried back and forth over one of the buried pipelines and one crew occupied a pumping station. Russia, said Svante Cornell, a specialist on Central Asia and the Caucasus at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, sent a simple message: “We can blow this up at any time.”
. . .
Despite its best intentions, Europe is likely to remain dependent on Russian energy supplies for the foreseeable future and, perhaps, indefinitely if Mr. Putin has his way. And that reflects his long-held beliefs.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
A Billion People Hungry: Is Famine the Next Thing?
Reuters AlertNet has just published a report by Oxfam that claims that a billion people are hungry and many of them could starve. This is news, if true, and yet it seems not to have attracted much interest by other publication outlets. The scale of the world's crisis seems to swell beyond our ability to internalize. Anyone who is watching has so many reasons to be concerned, whatever one's political orientation. I reproduce the report to increase the public interest.
One billion people hungry - Oxfam
26 Jan 2009 19:48:00 GMT
Written by: Emma Batha
Almost a billion people are going hungry and millions more could slip over the edge unless the world takes urgent action, aid agency Oxfam warns in a new report.
"This should be a wake-up call for all those who believe that the food crisis will be over soon," Oxfam's Chief Executive Barbara Stocking said.
Recent food price rises have helped swell the number of hungry to around 963 million - an increase of 109 million people in about two years, according to U.N. figures quoted in the report, A Billion Hungry People.
Oxfam warned that the global economic recession and climate change would likely exacerbate the problem.
"Leaders have a window of opportunity to prevent a worse situation resulting from the triple crunch of the economic crisis, climate change, and energy and water scarcity," Stocking said.
"Failure to act will see millions more people falling into hunger."
The British aid agency released the report on the opening day of a U.N. conference in Madrid on food security.
Although global food prices have fallen in the last few months, they are not back to previous levels, and are likely to rise sharply again in the future, Oxfam said.
Sub-Saharan Africa is a region causing particular concern, with the number of hungry people increasing by 43 million over the last 15 years to 212 million, according to the report.
Oxfam said much more must be done to address the underlying issues that cause the chronic hunger now affecting one in six people in the world.
The report includes recommendations for reforming the humanitarian aid system and calls on poor countries to invest more in agriculture.
Developing countries must increase protection measures for vulnerable populations - including employment creation schemes for those at risk of hunger, it says.
For their part, rich countries must ensure long-term predictable funding to developing countries for investment in agriculture and climate change adaptation.
Another report, published on Monday by British think tank Chatham House, says climate change, water scarcity and competition for land will make it hard to meet an expected 50 percent rise in demand for food by 2030. The Feeding of the Nine Billion - a reference to the world's ballooning population - also calls for more investment in agriculture with a focus on helping small farms.
Here are some facts and figures from Oxfam:
* One in six of the world's population is hungry
* Between 50 and 60 percent of childhood deaths in the developing world are hunger related
* The risk of death is 2.5 times higher for children with mild malnutrition than for children who are adequately nourished
* The proportion of overseas development assistance spent on agriculture has fallen from almost a fifth in 1980 to 3 percent today
* Poor people are particularly vulnerable to food price changes with many spending up to 80 percent of their income on food
* Even before the recent crisis 16,000 children died every day of hunger-related causes - one every five seconds
Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.
One billion people hungry - Oxfam
26 Jan 2009 19:48:00 GMT
Written by: Emma Batha
Almost a billion people are going hungry and millions more could slip over the edge unless the world takes urgent action, aid agency Oxfam warns in a new report.
"This should be a wake-up call for all those who believe that the food crisis will be over soon," Oxfam's Chief Executive Barbara Stocking said.
Recent food price rises have helped swell the number of hungry to around 963 million - an increase of 109 million people in about two years, according to U.N. figures quoted in the report, A Billion Hungry People.
Oxfam warned that the global economic recession and climate change would likely exacerbate the problem.
"Leaders have a window of opportunity to prevent a worse situation resulting from the triple crunch of the economic crisis, climate change, and energy and water scarcity," Stocking said.
"Failure to act will see millions more people falling into hunger."
The British aid agency released the report on the opening day of a U.N. conference in Madrid on food security.
Although global food prices have fallen in the last few months, they are not back to previous levels, and are likely to rise sharply again in the future, Oxfam said.
Sub-Saharan Africa is a region causing particular concern, with the number of hungry people increasing by 43 million over the last 15 years to 212 million, according to the report.
Oxfam said much more must be done to address the underlying issues that cause the chronic hunger now affecting one in six people in the world.
The report includes recommendations for reforming the humanitarian aid system and calls on poor countries to invest more in agriculture.
Developing countries must increase protection measures for vulnerable populations - including employment creation schemes for those at risk of hunger, it says.
For their part, rich countries must ensure long-term predictable funding to developing countries for investment in agriculture and climate change adaptation.
Another report, published on Monday by British think tank Chatham House, says climate change, water scarcity and competition for land will make it hard to meet an expected 50 percent rise in demand for food by 2030. The Feeding of the Nine Billion - a reference to the world's ballooning population - also calls for more investment in agriculture with a focus on helping small farms.
Here are some facts and figures from Oxfam:
* One in six of the world's population is hungry
* Between 50 and 60 percent of childhood deaths in the developing world are hunger related
* The risk of death is 2.5 times higher for children with mild malnutrition than for children who are adequately nourished
* The proportion of overseas development assistance spent on agriculture has fallen from almost a fifth in 1980 to 3 percent today
* Poor people are particularly vulnerable to food price changes with many spending up to 80 percent of their income on food
* Even before the recent crisis 16,000 children died every day of hunger-related causes - one every five seconds
Reuters AlertNet is not responsible for the content of external websites.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Terror in Swat
It is difficult to internalize how serious the situation is in Pakistan -- at least if we believe all that is being reported. The most stressed places are in the tribal territories, Baluchistan, and, now, Swat. Local populations in many parts of these regions are falling under the control of whoever is the meanest, which seems to be people calling themselves "Taliban." The military seems to be paralyzed at the points where they are most needed. The government has been unwilling to recognize many things that seem obvious, like the imperious presence of the Taliban in Quetta. An now the government can't make up its mind about what to do about the radical Islamist groups.
I have objected that calling the tribal areas "lawless" misleads -- given that in fact tribal law (tribally based conventions of solving problems) has long been accepted and generally followed in the Pushtun tribal areas -- but the word "lawless" seems to me appropriate for places like Swat where the edicts of a single individual constitute whatever "law" there is. Obviously, this is not the Islam that most Pakistanis believe in. But it seems well ensconced and dominant in some notable places in the country.
The New York Times January 25, 2009
Radio Spreads Taliban’s Terror in Pakistani Region
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Every night around 8 o’clock, the terrified residents of Swat, a lush and picturesque valley a hundred miles from three of Pakistan’s most important cities, crowd around their radios. They know that failure to listen and learn might lead to a lashing — or a beheading.
Using a portable radio transmitter, a local Taliban leader, Shah Doran, on most nights outlines newly proscribed “un-Islamic” activities in Swat, like selling DVDs, watching cable television, singing and dancing, criticizing the Taliban, shaving beards and allowing girls to attend school. He also reveals names of people the Taliban have recently killed for violating their decrees — and those they plan to kill.
“They control everything through the radio,” said one Swat resident, who declined to give his name for fear the Taliban might kill him. “Everyone waits for the broadcast.”
International attention remains fixed on the Taliban’s hold on Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas, from where they launch attacks on American forces in Afghanistan. But for Pakistan, the loss of the Swat Valley could prove just as devastating.
Unlike the fringe tribal areas, Swat, a Delaware-size chunk of territory with 1.3 million residents and a rich cultural history, is part of Pakistan proper, within reach of Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the capital.
After more than a year of fighting, virtually all of it is now under Taliban control, marking the militants’ farthest advance eastward into Pakistan’s so-called settled areas, residents and government officials from the region say.
With the increasing consolidation of their power, the Taliban have taken a sizable bite out of the nation. And they are enforcing a strict interpretation of Islam with cruelty, bringing public beheadings, assassinations, social and cultural repression and persecution of women to what was once an independent, relatively secular region, dotted with ski resorts and fruit orchards and known for its dancing girls.
Last year, 70 police officers were beheaded, shot or otherwise slain in Swat, and 150 wounded, said Malik Naveed Khan, the police inspector general for the North-West Frontier Province.
The police have become so afraid that many officers have put advertisements in newspapers renouncing their jobs so the Taliban will not kill them.
One who stayed on the job was Farooq Khan, a midlevel officer in Mingora, the valley’s largest city, where decapitated bodies of policemen and other victims routinely surface. Last month, he was shopping there when two men on a motorcycle sprayed him with gunfire, killing him in broad daylight.
“He always said, ‘I have to stay here and defend our home,’ ” recalled his brother, Wajid Ali Khan, a Swat native and the province’s minister for environment, as he passed around a cellphone with Farooq’s picture.
In the view of analysts, the growing nightmare in Swat is a capsule of the country’s problems: an ineffectual and unresponsive civilian government, coupled with military and security forces that, in the view of furious residents, have willingly allowed the militants to spread terror deep into Pakistan.
The crisis has become a critical test for the government of the civilian president, Asif Ali Zardari, and for a security apparatus whose loyalties, many Pakistanis say, remain in question.
Seeking to deflect blame, Mr. Zardari’s government recently criticized “earlier halfhearted attempts at rooting out extremists from the area” and vowed to fight militants “who are ruthlessly murdering and maiming our citizens.”
But as pressure grows, he has also said in recent days that the government would be willing to talk with militants who accept its authority. Such negotiations would carry serious risks: security officials say a brief peace deal in Swat last spring was a spectacular failure that allowed militants to tighten their hold and take revenge on people who had supported the military.
Without more forceful and concerted action by the government, some warn, the Taliban threat in Pakistan is bound to spread.
“The crux of the problem is the government appears divided about what to do,” said Mahmood Shah, a retired Pakistani Army brigadier who until 2006 was in charge of security in the western tribal areas. “This disconnect among the political leadership has emboldened the militants.”
From 2,000 to 4,000 Taliban fighters now roam the Swat Valley, according to interviews with a half-dozen senior Pakistani government, military and political officials involved in the fight. By contrast, the Pakistani military has four brigades with 12,000 to 15,000 men in Swat, officials say.
But the soldiers largely stay inside their camps, unwilling to patrol or exert any large presence that might provoke — or discourage — the militants, Swat residents and political leaders say. The military also has not raided a small village that locals say is widely known as the Taliban’s headquarters in Swat.
Nor have troops destroyed mobile radio transmitters mounted on motorcycles or pickup trucks that Shah Doran and the leader of the Taliban in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, have expertly used to terrify residents.
Being named in one of the nightly broadcasts often leaves just two options: fleeing Swat, or turning up headless and dumped in a village square.
When the army does act, its near-total lack of preparedness to fight a counterinsurgency reveals itself. Its usual tactic is to lob artillery shells into a general area, and the results have seemed to hurt civilians more than the militants, residents say.
In some parts of Pakistan, civilian militias have risen to fight the Taliban. But in Swat, the Taliban’s gains amid a large army presence has convinced many that the military must be conspiring with the Taliban.
“It’s very mysterious how they get so much weapons and support,” while nearby districts are comparatively calm, said Muzaffar ul-Mulk Khan, a member of Parliament from Swat, who said his home near Mingora was recently destroyed by the Taliban.
“We are bewildered by the military. They patrol only in Mingora. In the rest of Swat they sit in their bases. And the militants can kill at will anywhere in Mingora,” he said.
“Nothing is being done by the government," Mr. Khan added.
Accusations that the military lacks the will to fight in Swat are “very unfair and unjustified,” said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the chief military spokesman, who said 180 army soldiers and officers had been killed in Swat in the past 14 months.
“They do reach out, and they do patrol,” he said.
Military officials also say they are trying to step up activity in Swat. This weekend, soldiers were deployed to protect a handful of educational buildings in Mingora, amid a wave of school bombings.
General Abbas said the military did not have the means to block Taliban radio transmissions across such a wide area, but he disputed the view that Mingora had fallen to the militants.
“Just because they come out at night and throw down four or five bodies in the square does not mean that militants control anything,” he said.
Few officials would dispute that one of the Pakistani military’s biggest mistakes in Swat was its failure to protect Pir Samiullah, a local leader whose 500 followers fought the Taliban in the village of Mandal Dag. After the Taliban killed him in a firefight last month, the militants demanded that his followers reveal his gravesite — and then started beheading people until they got the information, one Mandal Dag villager said.
“They dug him up and hung his body in the square,” the villager said, and then they took the body to a secret location. The desecration was intended to show what would happen to anyone who defied the Taliban’s rule, but it also made painfully clear to Swat residents that the Pakistani government could not be trusted to defend those who rose up against the militants.
“He should have been given more protection,” said one Pakistani security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the subject. “He should have been made a symbol of resistance.”
Gruesome displays like the defilement of Pir Samiullah’s remains are an effective tactic for the Taliban, who have shown cruel efficiency in following through on their threats.
Recently, Shah Doran broadcast word that the Taliban intended to kill a police officer who he said had killed three people.
“We have sent people, and tomorrow you will have good news,” he said on his nightly broadcast, according to a resident of Matta, a Taliban stronghold. The next day the decapitated body of the policeman was found in a nearby village.
Even in Mingora, a town grown hardened to violence, residents were shocked early this month to find the bullet-ridden body of one of the city’s most famous dancing girls splayed on the main square.
Known as Shabana, the woman was visited at night by a group of men who claimed to want to hire her for a party. They shot her to death and dragged her body more than a quarter-mile to the central square, leaving it as a warning for anyone who would flout Taliban decrees.
The leader of the militants in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, gained prominence from making radio broadcasts and running an Islamic school, becoming popular among otherwise isolated homemakers and inspiring them to sell their jewelry to finance his operation. He also drew support from his marriage to the daughter of Sufi Mohammed, a powerful religious leader in Swat until 2001 who later disowned his son-in-law.
Even though Swat does not border Afghanistan or any of Pakistan’s seven lawless federal tribal areas, Maulana Fazlullah eventually allied with Taliban militants who dominate regions along the Afghan frontier.
His fighters now roam the valley with sniper rifles, Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, mortar tubes and, according to some officials, night-vision goggles and flak vests.
His latest tactic is a ban on girls’ attending school in Swat, which will be tested in February when private schools are scheduled to reopen after winter recess. The Taliban have already destroyed 169 girls’ schools in Swat, government officials say, and they expect most private schools to stay closed rather than risk retaliation.
“The local population is totally fed up, and if they had the chance they would lynch each and every Talib,” said Mr. Naveed Khan, the police official. “But the Taliban are so cruel and violent, no one will oppose them. If this is not stopped, it will spill into other areas of Pakistan.”
Ismail Khan contributed reporting.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
I have objected that calling the tribal areas "lawless" misleads -- given that in fact tribal law (tribally based conventions of solving problems) has long been accepted and generally followed in the Pushtun tribal areas -- but the word "lawless" seems to me appropriate for places like Swat where the edicts of a single individual constitute whatever "law" there is. Obviously, this is not the Islam that most Pakistanis believe in. But it seems well ensconced and dominant in some notable places in the country.
The New York Times January 25, 2009
Radio Spreads Taliban’s Terror in Pakistani Region
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Every night around 8 o’clock, the terrified residents of Swat, a lush and picturesque valley a hundred miles from three of Pakistan’s most important cities, crowd around their radios. They know that failure to listen and learn might lead to a lashing — or a beheading.
Using a portable radio transmitter, a local Taliban leader, Shah Doran, on most nights outlines newly proscribed “un-Islamic” activities in Swat, like selling DVDs, watching cable television, singing and dancing, criticizing the Taliban, shaving beards and allowing girls to attend school. He also reveals names of people the Taliban have recently killed for violating their decrees — and those they plan to kill.
“They control everything through the radio,” said one Swat resident, who declined to give his name for fear the Taliban might kill him. “Everyone waits for the broadcast.”
International attention remains fixed on the Taliban’s hold on Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas, from where they launch attacks on American forces in Afghanistan. But for Pakistan, the loss of the Swat Valley could prove just as devastating.
Unlike the fringe tribal areas, Swat, a Delaware-size chunk of territory with 1.3 million residents and a rich cultural history, is part of Pakistan proper, within reach of Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the capital.
After more than a year of fighting, virtually all of it is now under Taliban control, marking the militants’ farthest advance eastward into Pakistan’s so-called settled areas, residents and government officials from the region say.
With the increasing consolidation of their power, the Taliban have taken a sizable bite out of the nation. And they are enforcing a strict interpretation of Islam with cruelty, bringing public beheadings, assassinations, social and cultural repression and persecution of women to what was once an independent, relatively secular region, dotted with ski resorts and fruit orchards and known for its dancing girls.
Last year, 70 police officers were beheaded, shot or otherwise slain in Swat, and 150 wounded, said Malik Naveed Khan, the police inspector general for the North-West Frontier Province.
The police have become so afraid that many officers have put advertisements in newspapers renouncing their jobs so the Taliban will not kill them.
One who stayed on the job was Farooq Khan, a midlevel officer in Mingora, the valley’s largest city, where decapitated bodies of policemen and other victims routinely surface. Last month, he was shopping there when two men on a motorcycle sprayed him with gunfire, killing him in broad daylight.
“He always said, ‘I have to stay here and defend our home,’ ” recalled his brother, Wajid Ali Khan, a Swat native and the province’s minister for environment, as he passed around a cellphone with Farooq’s picture.
In the view of analysts, the growing nightmare in Swat is a capsule of the country’s problems: an ineffectual and unresponsive civilian government, coupled with military and security forces that, in the view of furious residents, have willingly allowed the militants to spread terror deep into Pakistan.
The crisis has become a critical test for the government of the civilian president, Asif Ali Zardari, and for a security apparatus whose loyalties, many Pakistanis say, remain in question.
Seeking to deflect blame, Mr. Zardari’s government recently criticized “earlier halfhearted attempts at rooting out extremists from the area” and vowed to fight militants “who are ruthlessly murdering and maiming our citizens.”
But as pressure grows, he has also said in recent days that the government would be willing to talk with militants who accept its authority. Such negotiations would carry serious risks: security officials say a brief peace deal in Swat last spring was a spectacular failure that allowed militants to tighten their hold and take revenge on people who had supported the military.
Without more forceful and concerted action by the government, some warn, the Taliban threat in Pakistan is bound to spread.
“The crux of the problem is the government appears divided about what to do,” said Mahmood Shah, a retired Pakistani Army brigadier who until 2006 was in charge of security in the western tribal areas. “This disconnect among the political leadership has emboldened the militants.”
From 2,000 to 4,000 Taliban fighters now roam the Swat Valley, according to interviews with a half-dozen senior Pakistani government, military and political officials involved in the fight. By contrast, the Pakistani military has four brigades with 12,000 to 15,000 men in Swat, officials say.
But the soldiers largely stay inside their camps, unwilling to patrol or exert any large presence that might provoke — or discourage — the militants, Swat residents and political leaders say. The military also has not raided a small village that locals say is widely known as the Taliban’s headquarters in Swat.
Nor have troops destroyed mobile radio transmitters mounted on motorcycles or pickup trucks that Shah Doran and the leader of the Taliban in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, have expertly used to terrify residents.
Being named in one of the nightly broadcasts often leaves just two options: fleeing Swat, or turning up headless and dumped in a village square.
When the army does act, its near-total lack of preparedness to fight a counterinsurgency reveals itself. Its usual tactic is to lob artillery shells into a general area, and the results have seemed to hurt civilians more than the militants, residents say.
In some parts of Pakistan, civilian militias have risen to fight the Taliban. But in Swat, the Taliban’s gains amid a large army presence has convinced many that the military must be conspiring with the Taliban.
“It’s very mysterious how they get so much weapons and support,” while nearby districts are comparatively calm, said Muzaffar ul-Mulk Khan, a member of Parliament from Swat, who said his home near Mingora was recently destroyed by the Taliban.
“We are bewildered by the military. They patrol only in Mingora. In the rest of Swat they sit in their bases. And the militants can kill at will anywhere in Mingora,” he said.
“Nothing is being done by the government," Mr. Khan added.
Accusations that the military lacks the will to fight in Swat are “very unfair and unjustified,” said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the chief military spokesman, who said 180 army soldiers and officers had been killed in Swat in the past 14 months.
“They do reach out, and they do patrol,” he said.
Military officials also say they are trying to step up activity in Swat. This weekend, soldiers were deployed to protect a handful of educational buildings in Mingora, amid a wave of school bombings.
General Abbas said the military did not have the means to block Taliban radio transmissions across such a wide area, but he disputed the view that Mingora had fallen to the militants.
“Just because they come out at night and throw down four or five bodies in the square does not mean that militants control anything,” he said.
Few officials would dispute that one of the Pakistani military’s biggest mistakes in Swat was its failure to protect Pir Samiullah, a local leader whose 500 followers fought the Taliban in the village of Mandal Dag. After the Taliban killed him in a firefight last month, the militants demanded that his followers reveal his gravesite — and then started beheading people until they got the information, one Mandal Dag villager said.
“They dug him up and hung his body in the square,” the villager said, and then they took the body to a secret location. The desecration was intended to show what would happen to anyone who defied the Taliban’s rule, but it also made painfully clear to Swat residents that the Pakistani government could not be trusted to defend those who rose up against the militants.
“He should have been given more protection,” said one Pakistani security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the subject. “He should have been made a symbol of resistance.”
Gruesome displays like the defilement of Pir Samiullah’s remains are an effective tactic for the Taliban, who have shown cruel efficiency in following through on their threats.
Recently, Shah Doran broadcast word that the Taliban intended to kill a police officer who he said had killed three people.
“We have sent people, and tomorrow you will have good news,” he said on his nightly broadcast, according to a resident of Matta, a Taliban stronghold. The next day the decapitated body of the policeman was found in a nearby village.
Even in Mingora, a town grown hardened to violence, residents were shocked early this month to find the bullet-ridden body of one of the city’s most famous dancing girls splayed on the main square.
Known as Shabana, the woman was visited at night by a group of men who claimed to want to hire her for a party. They shot her to death and dragged her body more than a quarter-mile to the central square, leaving it as a warning for anyone who would flout Taliban decrees.
The leader of the militants in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, gained prominence from making radio broadcasts and running an Islamic school, becoming popular among otherwise isolated homemakers and inspiring them to sell their jewelry to finance his operation. He also drew support from his marriage to the daughter of Sufi Mohammed, a powerful religious leader in Swat until 2001 who later disowned his son-in-law.
Even though Swat does not border Afghanistan or any of Pakistan’s seven lawless federal tribal areas, Maulana Fazlullah eventually allied with Taliban militants who dominate regions along the Afghan frontier.
His fighters now roam the valley with sniper rifles, Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, mortar tubes and, according to some officials, night-vision goggles and flak vests.
His latest tactic is a ban on girls’ attending school in Swat, which will be tested in February when private schools are scheduled to reopen after winter recess. The Taliban have already destroyed 169 girls’ schools in Swat, government officials say, and they expect most private schools to stay closed rather than risk retaliation.
“The local population is totally fed up, and if they had the chance they would lynch each and every Talib,” said Mr. Naveed Khan, the police official. “But the Taliban are so cruel and violent, no one will oppose them. If this is not stopped, it will spill into other areas of Pakistan.”
Ismail Khan contributed reporting.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Shocking loss: ISIM has closed down
Sad news. The International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM)has closed its doors. This may be an early omen of how the world economic collapse will affect scholarly activity. ISIM was one of the innovative centers for the study of Muslim society. For some of us it was especially useful because it was not Middle East or Arab- centered. This was a center that sought to track the affairs of Muslims outside the Arab world - who collectively number far more than those in the Arab world. We are thankful for all that they have contributed to knowledge about the Muslim peoples around the world.
For the moment, the only thing I know to say is, how much we will miss them. Thanks, guys.
For the moment, the only thing I know to say is, how much we will miss them. Thanks, guys.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Arming journalists --- a strange idea
This is from RT news. Journalists who are armed? In Russia perhaps it is conceivable.
Pen and sword: is it time to arm journalists? January 22, 2009, 19:18
The co-owner of a leading independent newspaper in Russia is considering asking the authorities to provide guns for his journalists. It follows the assassination of a Novaya Gazeta reporter by an unknown man on Monday.
Aleksandr Lebedev said on Thursday that his employees at the paper need to be armed for personal security, since ‘the FSB cannot protect them’.
He added that he is considering sending a letter to the Security Services asking them to provide small arms for the journalists, even though a similar request was earlier denied.
The sale of guns is strictly regulated in Russia. But some people, like State Duma deputies, are allowed to carry personal weapons to protect themselves.
Lebedev’s comment comes after Anastasiya Baburova, a journalist who worked for Novaya Gazeta, was killed by an unknown assassin along with the prominent lawyer Stanislav Markelov.
The double murder took place in a small street in central Moscow. Investigators said they had neither eyewitness to the attack nor a clear picture of the suspect.
Meanwhile, a Russian tabloid has published a CCTV image from a security camera at a metro station close to the scene of the shooting. The paper claims it shows the alleged assassin after he shot the pair.
The authorities have yet to comment on the publication of the photograph.
However, Russia’s “For Human Rights” organization says the image has all the hallmarks of a ‘leak’. One of the group’s leaders, Lev Ponomarev, says it’s still unclear whether the CCTV image was leaked for cash, or whether the leak was authorized from above, “aimed at saving the murderer”.
Pen and sword: is it time to arm journalists? January 22, 2009, 19:18
The co-owner of a leading independent newspaper in Russia is considering asking the authorities to provide guns for his journalists. It follows the assassination of a Novaya Gazeta reporter by an unknown man on Monday.
Aleksandr Lebedev said on Thursday that his employees at the paper need to be armed for personal security, since ‘the FSB cannot protect them’.
He added that he is considering sending a letter to the Security Services asking them to provide small arms for the journalists, even though a similar request was earlier denied.
The sale of guns is strictly regulated in Russia. But some people, like State Duma deputies, are allowed to carry personal weapons to protect themselves.
Lebedev’s comment comes after Anastasiya Baburova, a journalist who worked for Novaya Gazeta, was killed by an unknown assassin along with the prominent lawyer Stanislav Markelov.
The double murder took place in a small street in central Moscow. Investigators said they had neither eyewitness to the attack nor a clear picture of the suspect.
Meanwhile, a Russian tabloid has published a CCTV image from a security camera at a metro station close to the scene of the shooting. The paper claims it shows the alleged assassin after he shot the pair.
The authorities have yet to comment on the publication of the photograph.
However, Russia’s “For Human Rights” organization says the image has all the hallmarks of a ‘leak’. One of the group’s leaders, Lev Ponomarev, says it’s still unclear whether the CCTV image was leaked for cash, or whether the leak was authorized from above, “aimed at saving the murderer”.
Economic crsis in Central Asia
EurasiaNet's report on the impact of the economic crisis on Central Asia.
Business & Economics:
CENTRAL ASIA FACES CURRENCY CRISIS
1/21/09
Central Asia's national currencies are plunging against the dollar and may sink still further as the global monetary crisis continues to shake the region's fiscal foundations, financial chiefs have warned. Kazakhstan, which boasts the region's largest economy, has vowed to hold the line at no more than a 10-percent devaluation of the tenge against the dollar. "It is necessary to ensure the equilibrium and sustainability of the financial system, as a sharp devaluation will exacerbate banks' problems in paying external debts," warned Kazakh Economy Minister Bakhyt Sultanov, Kazakhstan Today reported on January 19. Falling currencies make external debts more expensive and contribute to domestic inflation. Other countries expect to take more of a hit. According to the Kyrgyz news agency 24.kg, the chairman of the Kyrgyz stock exchange has forecast an exchange rate later this year of 45 soms per dollar. The dollar stood at 40.1 soms on January 21. However, bankers in Tajikistan have admitted that there is little they can do to stop the freefall of the somoni. "The National Bank of Tajikistan has limited opportunities to maintain the stability of the national currency rate," National Bank Chairman Sharif Rahimzoda said on January 10. Rahimzoda added that "about $235 million" per month needs to be injected into the domestic currency market to prop-up the somoni against the dollar, Avetsa news agency reported. However, the government does not have the resources to hold exchange rates steady, he said. "Unfortunately, we do not have such [an] opportunity. [T]he amount of the country's gold and foreign currency reserves have already decreased from $350 million to $198 million in the period from January 2008 to January 2009." Uzbekistan, too, faces a currency crisis and local media have speculated that if uncontained, popular discontent could grow. The official exchange rate stands at 1,396 soums to the dollar, but on the black market the rate climbs to 1,700 soums per dollar, the news site Uzmetronom.com claimed on January 16. The declining value of the soum coupled with inflationary pressures, growing unemployment, non-payment of salaries and a series of government tactics to control the economy are pushing many families to the brink of financial disaster, the report said. "The situation, as estimated by experts, will result in an additional and very painful leap in inflation, which would make a large proportion of the population of Uzbekistan insolvent," it added. Early last month, Uzbek President Islam Karimov maintained that the "Uzbek model" of economic development would steady the state against market fluctuations. However, on December 27 the International Monetary Fund cautioned that "increasing protectionist measures and implementing foreign exchange restrictions" would harm Uzbekistan's prospects for 2009.
Editor's Note: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan
Business & Economics:
CENTRAL ASIA FACES CURRENCY CRISIS
1/21/09
Central Asia's national currencies are plunging against the dollar and may sink still further as the global monetary crisis continues to shake the region's fiscal foundations, financial chiefs have warned. Kazakhstan, which boasts the region's largest economy, has vowed to hold the line at no more than a 10-percent devaluation of the tenge against the dollar. "It is necessary to ensure the equilibrium and sustainability of the financial system, as a sharp devaluation will exacerbate banks' problems in paying external debts," warned Kazakh Economy Minister Bakhyt Sultanov, Kazakhstan Today reported on January 19. Falling currencies make external debts more expensive and contribute to domestic inflation. Other countries expect to take more of a hit. According to the Kyrgyz news agency 24.kg, the chairman of the Kyrgyz stock exchange has forecast an exchange rate later this year of 45 soms per dollar. The dollar stood at 40.1 soms on January 21. However, bankers in Tajikistan have admitted that there is little they can do to stop the freefall of the somoni. "The National Bank of Tajikistan has limited opportunities to maintain the stability of the national currency rate," National Bank Chairman Sharif Rahimzoda said on January 10. Rahimzoda added that "about $235 million" per month needs to be injected into the domestic currency market to prop-up the somoni against the dollar, Avetsa news agency reported. However, the government does not have the resources to hold exchange rates steady, he said. "Unfortunately, we do not have such [an] opportunity. [T]he amount of the country's gold and foreign currency reserves have already decreased from $350 million to $198 million in the period from January 2008 to January 2009." Uzbekistan, too, faces a currency crisis and local media have speculated that if uncontained, popular discontent could grow. The official exchange rate stands at 1,396 soums to the dollar, but on the black market the rate climbs to 1,700 soums per dollar, the news site Uzmetronom.com claimed on January 16. The declining value of the soum coupled with inflationary pressures, growing unemployment, non-payment of salaries and a series of government tactics to control the economy are pushing many families to the brink of financial disaster, the report said. "The situation, as estimated by experts, will result in an additional and very painful leap in inflation, which would make a large proportion of the population of Uzbekistan insolvent," it added. Early last month, Uzbek President Islam Karimov maintained that the "Uzbek model" of economic development would steady the state against market fluctuations. However, on December 27 the International Monetary Fund cautioned that "increasing protectionist measures and implementing foreign exchange restrictions" would harm Uzbekistan's prospects for 2009.
Editor's Note: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan
Uncovering the Deep State in Turkey
Many of us tend to look at Turkey as a progressive state that exemplifies what a society can become in the Middle East and Central Asia. Pakistan in some ways has modeled itself after Turkey. But there has always been an underside to Turkey in the sense that the military was a stabilizing force in Turkey's affairs. But recent inquiries into an apparent attempted coup by "progressives" is uncovering the work of the "Deep State," which is here defined as "a shadowy zone where state interests intersect with lawless and corrupt elements of the bureaucracy, military and the security establishment." So there may be "a criminal apparatus within the state." That such an inquiry is taking place reveals how truly progressive Turkey is, however -- who would imagine it taking place in Egypt or Syria or Jordan or Saudi Arabia? EurasiaNet published this article today. [Click on the title for a link.]
Civil Society:
TURKEY: COUP INVESTIGATION RAISES GOVERNMENT-MILITARY TENSION
Yigal Schleifer: 1/22/09
An investigation into an alleged plot by secularist ultranationalists to overthrow the Turkish government has deepened with the recent arrest of senior military officers and the discovery of several weapons caches. At the same time, there is growing concern that the probe could lead to increased tension between the government and Turkey's powerful military, as well as that the investigation -- aimed at tackling long-standing anti-democratic forces in Turkish politics -- is becoming dangerously politicized.
"You have to take [the investigation] very seriously and you have to be afraid of it," says Andrew Finkel, a columnist with the English-language newspaper Today's Zaman.
"This is an attempt to dismantle the unelected authority in the Turkish state, which has been responsible for militarism and a whole raft of serious anti-democratic practices. And, it seems like what is also happening is that the government is literally disarming its opponents."
"This is a search for justice and it's a search for power, and it doesn't mean you can't do one without the other," he adds.
In an effort to ease the tension, Turkish President Abdullah Gul gathered on January 21 with top officials from the executive, legislative and judiciary branches for a lunch meeting. After the meeting, Gul released a statement calling for the country's institutions to pay close attention to legal procedure in the case. "A rigorous attachment to the supremacy of law and its basic principles and maximum attention to procedural laws will make Turkey stronger and will consolidate the public's trust," the statement said.
The investigation into the coup plot, commonly known as "Ergenekon," has already resulted in the arrest of some 130 people, among them retired four-star generals and prominent politicians, journalists and academics. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. According to an indictment, the plotters were hoping to bring down the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) by sowing enough chaos, through terror attacks and high-level assassinations, that the military would be forced to intervene.
In recent weeks, following sketches found in the homes of some of the suspects, police have uncovered two weapons caches buried on the outskirts of Ankara. Among the weapons were hand grenades, plastic explosives and ammunition.
For many Turks, the investigation and the arrests -- particularly of high-level military personnel -- offer a chance to expose and unravel some of the work of the "Deep State," a phrase used to describe a shadowy zone where state interests intersect with lawless and corrupt elements of the bureaucracy, military and the security establishment.
"I think this is a historic case. This is a good chance for Turkish political system to put a stop to military interventions and to clean its ranks of these illegal affiliations between state authorities and gangsters and mafia types," says Sahin Alpay, a professor of political science at Istanbul's Bahcesehir University.
But the case, launched in June 2007 after grenades were found in the Istanbul home of a retired military officer, is also creating new tensions between the AKP and the military, which sees itself as the ultimate guardian of Turkey's secular tradition and which has forced out of power four governments in the past.
The recent arrest of three retired generals and nine active officers led to the armed forces chief General Ilker Basbug to call on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a surprise meeting. The military also recently released a statement warning Turkey's media not to "declare people and institutions guilty without trial."
"From now on, responsible authorities and good-sensed media must fulfill their duties and take necessary measures, instead of using only rhetoric," the statement added.
Other parts of Turkey's secularist establishment, including the judiciary, are also crying foul, asserting that the government is using the Ergenekon investigation to take revenge against its political opponents. "We are witnessing a confrontation against the Republic's core values," Deniz Baykal, leader of main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) said at a press conference earlier in January.
Meanwhile, Turkey's Judges and Prosecutors Association (YARSAV) and the Istanbul bar association have also strongly criticized the way investigation is being handled. "We are concerned about the rule of law (in Turkey), as these people [suspects] were detained . . . in a way that could be assessed as revenge," Muammer Aydin, head of the Istanbul Bar, recently said.
But criticism of the case has not been limited to hard-line secularists. The large number of arrests, which include some of the AKP's most vocal critics, and the dubious nature of the some of the evidence in the investigation, has some observers asking if the Ergenekon case has become tainted by politics.
Says Gareth Jenkins, a military analyst based in Istanbul: "[The Ergenekon investigation] started as a kernel of truth, but the AKP has seized on this as an opportunity to undermine the military and its secularist opponents. . . . With every step of the way it has become more politicized and anti-democratic."
"If the prosecution continues as we seen it, we can have an extremely dangerous situation," Jenkins adds. "You now have extreme distrust between the government and the military. What we don't want is a situation where the military believes the government is out to get it."
Government officials have rejected claims that the probe has gone off track, saying its critics are simply not accustomed to seeing the rule of law extend to what had previously been untouchable figures.
Still, observers say that the enormity and importance of the case requires the government to move carefully. "There really needs to be a scrupulous investigation. Everything has to be done by the book and in the right way," says Emma Sinclair-Webb, a Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch.
"On the other hand, you can't just caricature this whole process as simply being about a power struggle," she says. "It's just too important of a chance for Turkey to grapple with a very dark history and get rid of a criminal apparatus within the state."
Editor's Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.
Civil Society:
TURKEY: COUP INVESTIGATION RAISES GOVERNMENT-MILITARY TENSION
Yigal Schleifer: 1/22/09
An investigation into an alleged plot by secularist ultranationalists to overthrow the Turkish government has deepened with the recent arrest of senior military officers and the discovery of several weapons caches. At the same time, there is growing concern that the probe could lead to increased tension between the government and Turkey's powerful military, as well as that the investigation -- aimed at tackling long-standing anti-democratic forces in Turkish politics -- is becoming dangerously politicized.
"You have to take [the investigation] very seriously and you have to be afraid of it," says Andrew Finkel, a columnist with the English-language newspaper Today's Zaman.
"This is an attempt to dismantle the unelected authority in the Turkish state, which has been responsible for militarism and a whole raft of serious anti-democratic practices. And, it seems like what is also happening is that the government is literally disarming its opponents."
"This is a search for justice and it's a search for power, and it doesn't mean you can't do one without the other," he adds.
In an effort to ease the tension, Turkish President Abdullah Gul gathered on January 21 with top officials from the executive, legislative and judiciary branches for a lunch meeting. After the meeting, Gul released a statement calling for the country's institutions to pay close attention to legal procedure in the case. "A rigorous attachment to the supremacy of law and its basic principles and maximum attention to procedural laws will make Turkey stronger and will consolidate the public's trust," the statement said.
The investigation into the coup plot, commonly known as "Ergenekon," has already resulted in the arrest of some 130 people, among them retired four-star generals and prominent politicians, journalists and academics. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. According to an indictment, the plotters were hoping to bring down the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) by sowing enough chaos, through terror attacks and high-level assassinations, that the military would be forced to intervene.
In recent weeks, following sketches found in the homes of some of the suspects, police have uncovered two weapons caches buried on the outskirts of Ankara. Among the weapons were hand grenades, plastic explosives and ammunition.
For many Turks, the investigation and the arrests -- particularly of high-level military personnel -- offer a chance to expose and unravel some of the work of the "Deep State," a phrase used to describe a shadowy zone where state interests intersect with lawless and corrupt elements of the bureaucracy, military and the security establishment.
"I think this is a historic case. This is a good chance for Turkish political system to put a stop to military interventions and to clean its ranks of these illegal affiliations between state authorities and gangsters and mafia types," says Sahin Alpay, a professor of political science at Istanbul's Bahcesehir University.
But the case, launched in June 2007 after grenades were found in the Istanbul home of a retired military officer, is also creating new tensions between the AKP and the military, which sees itself as the ultimate guardian of Turkey's secular tradition and which has forced out of power four governments in the past.
The recent arrest of three retired generals and nine active officers led to the armed forces chief General Ilker Basbug to call on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for a surprise meeting. The military also recently released a statement warning Turkey's media not to "declare people and institutions guilty without trial."
"From now on, responsible authorities and good-sensed media must fulfill their duties and take necessary measures, instead of using only rhetoric," the statement added.
Other parts of Turkey's secularist establishment, including the judiciary, are also crying foul, asserting that the government is using the Ergenekon investigation to take revenge against its political opponents. "We are witnessing a confrontation against the Republic's core values," Deniz Baykal, leader of main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) said at a press conference earlier in January.
Meanwhile, Turkey's Judges and Prosecutors Association (YARSAV) and the Istanbul bar association have also strongly criticized the way investigation is being handled. "We are concerned about the rule of law (in Turkey), as these people [suspects] were detained . . . in a way that could be assessed as revenge," Muammer Aydin, head of the Istanbul Bar, recently said.
But criticism of the case has not been limited to hard-line secularists. The large number of arrests, which include some of the AKP's most vocal critics, and the dubious nature of the some of the evidence in the investigation, has some observers asking if the Ergenekon case has become tainted by politics.
Says Gareth Jenkins, a military analyst based in Istanbul: "[The Ergenekon investigation] started as a kernel of truth, but the AKP has seized on this as an opportunity to undermine the military and its secularist opponents. . . . With every step of the way it has become more politicized and anti-democratic."
"If the prosecution continues as we seen it, we can have an extremely dangerous situation," Jenkins adds. "You now have extreme distrust between the government and the military. What we don't want is a situation where the military believes the government is out to get it."
Government officials have rejected claims that the probe has gone off track, saying its critics are simply not accustomed to seeing the rule of law extend to what had previously been untouchable figures.
Still, observers say that the enormity and importance of the case requires the government to move carefully. "There really needs to be a scrupulous investigation. Everything has to be done by the book and in the right way," says Emma Sinclair-Webb, a Turkey researcher at Human Rights Watch.
"On the other hand, you can't just caricature this whole process as simply being about a power struggle," she says. "It's just too important of a chance for Turkey to grapple with a very dark history and get rid of a criminal apparatus within the state."
Editor's Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
US is going to supply Afghanistan through the northern routes.
This news is significant in that it indicates how dependent Afghanistan continues to be on its linkages to the north. It is not only what comes into the country through the northern routes that matters but also what goes out, most critically for the economy at this time, opium, heroin, hashish; could it some day again be raisins, pistachio nuts, melons? The highways and railroads of Central Asia now reach places in Central Asia that once were quite inaccessible. Distances in time and cost for the local residents and for shippers are shorter. Practical concerns of the great powers may oblige Central Asia to become ever more accessible to the wider world, despite the protective and defensive instincts of those who rule there. [Click of the title to link to the source.]
NYTimes January 21, 2009
U.S. Secures New Supply Routes to Afghanistan
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Faced with the risk that Taliban attacks could imperil the main supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan, the United States military has obtained permission to move troop supplies through Russia and Central Asia, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in the Middle East, said on Tuesday.
About three-quarters of NATO supplies are normally shipped into Afghanistan from western Pakistan, most of them through the Khyber Pass, an ancient trade and military gateway that lies just west of the Pakistani frontier hub of Peshawar.
But Taliban guerrillas who dominate the northwestern Pakistani tribal areas have pushed deeper into the Khyber region recently, burning hundreds of NATO supply trucks in Peshawar and carrying out deadly attacks on NATO convoys.
The violence has led some Pakistani truckers to stop driving the route and has raised concerns that continued attacks might seriously hurt NATO’s ability to resupply troops. With the American deployment expected to as much as double this year to 60,000 troops, it has become even more critical to find new routes to bring supplies into Afghanistan.
In Islamabad on Tuesday, General Petraeus said the American military had secured agreements with Russia and other countries to move supplies to Afghanistan from the north, easing the military’s heavy reliance on more dangerous routes through western Pakistan.
“It is very important as we increase the effort in Afghanistan that we have multiple routes that go into the country,” General Petraeus told reporters in Islamabad, where he had met with the head of the Pakistani Army as well as the country’s president and prime minister. The general had previously visited Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan to discuss the issue.
“There have been agreements reached, and there are transit lines now and transit agreements for commercial goods and services in particular that include several countries in the Central Asian states and also Russia,” he said.
Russia is the principal source of fuel for the alliance’s needs in Afghanistan, and the Kremlin already allows the shipment of nonlethal supplies bound for Afghanistan to travel across Russian territory by ground.
As if to underscore the instability of western Pakistani areas near the main NATO supply route, Pakistani security forces said Tuesday that they had killed 60 militants in fighting in Mohmand Agency, a Taliban stronghold north of the main road through the Khyber Pass.
According to reports in the Pakistani media, the country’s paramilitary troops, backed by artillery, tanks and helicopter gunships, fought militants on Monday and Tuesday in operations intended to root out guerrillas who a week earlier staged a 600-person assault on Pakistani outposts in Mohmand that left at least 6 Pakistani soldiers and 40 militants dead.
Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.
NYTimes January 21, 2009
U.S. Secures New Supply Routes to Afghanistan
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Faced with the risk that Taliban attacks could imperil the main supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan, the United States military has obtained permission to move troop supplies through Russia and Central Asia, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in the Middle East, said on Tuesday.
About three-quarters of NATO supplies are normally shipped into Afghanistan from western Pakistan, most of them through the Khyber Pass, an ancient trade and military gateway that lies just west of the Pakistani frontier hub of Peshawar.
But Taliban guerrillas who dominate the northwestern Pakistani tribal areas have pushed deeper into the Khyber region recently, burning hundreds of NATO supply trucks in Peshawar and carrying out deadly attacks on NATO convoys.
The violence has led some Pakistani truckers to stop driving the route and has raised concerns that continued attacks might seriously hurt NATO’s ability to resupply troops. With the American deployment expected to as much as double this year to 60,000 troops, it has become even more critical to find new routes to bring supplies into Afghanistan.
In Islamabad on Tuesday, General Petraeus said the American military had secured agreements with Russia and other countries to move supplies to Afghanistan from the north, easing the military’s heavy reliance on more dangerous routes through western Pakistan.
“It is very important as we increase the effort in Afghanistan that we have multiple routes that go into the country,” General Petraeus told reporters in Islamabad, where he had met with the head of the Pakistani Army as well as the country’s president and prime minister. The general had previously visited Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan to discuss the issue.
“There have been agreements reached, and there are transit lines now and transit agreements for commercial goods and services in particular that include several countries in the Central Asian states and also Russia,” he said.
Russia is the principal source of fuel for the alliance’s needs in Afghanistan, and the Kremlin already allows the shipment of nonlethal supplies bound for Afghanistan to travel across Russian territory by ground.
As if to underscore the instability of western Pakistani areas near the main NATO supply route, Pakistani security forces said Tuesday that they had killed 60 militants in fighting in Mohmand Agency, a Taliban stronghold north of the main road through the Khyber Pass.
According to reports in the Pakistani media, the country’s paramilitary troops, backed by artillery, tanks and helicopter gunships, fought militants on Monday and Tuesday in operations intended to root out guerrillas who a week earlier staged a 600-person assault on Pakistani outposts in Mohmand that left at least 6 Pakistani soldiers and 40 militants dead.
Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
How dangerous, and precious, is the truth: worth two more lives
Another two lives are taken lest the truth be known and promoted, one a lawyer the other a journalist working for a Russian newspaper who had already lost three journalists, including Anna Politkovskaia, since 2000. Another indicator of how costly -- how precious -- the truth is. Or, saying it the other ways, how dangerous, to some, the truth would be if it were known.
[Click on the title to link to the source.]
NYTimes January 20, 2009
Leading Russian Rights Lawyer Is Shot to Death in Moscow, Along With Journalist
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
MOSCOW — A prominent Russian lawyer who spent the better part of a decade pursuing contentious human rights and social justice cases was killed on Monday in a brazen daylight assassination in central Moscow, officials said.
The lawyer, Stanislav Markelov, had just left a news conference where he announced that he would continue to fight against the early release from jail of Yuri D. Budanov, a former Russian tank commander imprisoned for murdering a young Chechen woman.
Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old journalist who was with Mr. Markelov, was also killed, according to a spokeswoman for a newspaper where she worked as a freelancer, Novaya Gazeta, which is highly critical of the government. The two were shot.
Officials said they believed that Mr. Markelov, 34, was the primary target, having brought cases against the Russian military, Chechen warlords and murderous neo-fascists. With a laundry list of his potential enemies, authorities refrained from naming any suspects.
“Investigators are looking into various theories, including that the murder was linked to the victim’s professional activities,” Vladimir I. Markin, a spokesman for the investigative wing of the Prosecutor General’s Office, said of Mr. Markelov.
The murder bore the characteristics of a contract killing, a not-uncommon phenomenon in Russia. Even so, the audacity of Mr. Markelov’s murder surprised some commentators.
“Even when organized crime in the 1990s was rampant, such a killing would have been considered bold and horrific,” said a correspondent from Vesti television.
Mr. Markelov, who was the director of the Rule of Law Institute, a civil liberties group, gained prominence recently representing the family of Elza Kungayeva. She was an 18-year-old Chechen whom Mr. Budanov, the former tank commander, admitted strangling in his quarters in March 2000, just as the second post-Soviet war in Chechnya was beginning to rage.
Mr. Budanov was sentenced to 10 years in prison but was given early parole for good behavior.
Mr. Markelov, at the news conference just before his death, told reporters that he might file an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against the early release of Mr. Budanov, who was a decorated colonel of the Russian Army before he was stripped of his rank. In an interview last week with The New York Times, Mr. Markelov said he might also file a lawsuit against the administration of the prison that released Mr. Budanov last Thursday.
The decision to free Mr. Budanov set off street protests and outraged some human rights groups and Chechen officials. It reignited long-simmering tensions years after a decade of intermittent war in Chechnya, a southern Russian republic, was replaced by tenuous stability.
But Mr. Budanov was also revered by nationalists as a valiant fighter who helped wage a bloody but necessary war against separatist rebels in Chechnya. Some now see Mr. Markelov’s murder as revenge for his efforts against a Russian hero.
“The murder of Markelov, I consider a bold open warning by the ‘party of war’ to democratic Russia,” Nudri S. Nukhazhiev, Chechnya’s human rights ombudsman, said in a statement. “Today, there are no facts or evidence of the direct participation of Budanov in this crime, but I am more than certain that it was committed by his supporters with his consent.”
Mr. Markelov phoned the father of Ms. Kungayeva, the slain teenager, a few days ago to complain that he had received death threats, the father told the Interfax news agency.
Lela Khamzayeva, another lawyer for Ms. Kungayeva’s family, was adamant, however, that the killing of Mr. Markelov could not be linked to his connection with Mr. Budanov, because his role during the actual proceedings against the former colonel was, as she put it, “insignificant.”
“If someone is trying to link this murder with Markelov’s participation in the Budanov case, well, that’s just ridiculous,” she said.
Given Mr. Markelov’s propensity for challenging the Russian authorities and others known to settle scores violently, the list of potential suspects is lengthy.
He worked closely with Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist with Novaya Gazeta and strong critic of Russia’s Chechnya policies, who was murdered in Moscow in 2006.
He often defended the interests of those, like Ms. Kungayeva, who became ensnared in the violent and often arbitrary military justice of the Chechen conflict or the tyrannical rule of Chechnya’s violence-prone leader, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, in the war’s aftermath.
“He handled almost every case opened as a result of the work of Anna Politkovskaya,” said Nadezhda Prusenkova, a spokeswoman for Novaya Gazeta.
While he was not involved in the current trial of three men accused in the murder of Ms. Politkovskaya, Mr. Markelov did work on the case of another murdered Novaya Gazeta journalist, Igor Domnikov, who died in 2000 from wounds caused by a hammer blow to the head.
Mr. Markelov has also represented victims of neo-fascist and xenophobic violence, a phenomenon that has been expanding annually both in frequency and intensity, according to experts.
At least 10 people were killed and 9 others injured in racist attacks in Russia in the first two weeks of 2009, said Aleksandr Brod, the head of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau, Interfax reported.
Ms. Baburova, the freelancer who was killed Monday, began working for Novaya Gazeta last October. She cited Mr. Markelov in her most recent article about fascist groups, published on Saturday.
In it, the lawyer criticized the authorities for their handling of a case against the leader of a violent nationalist group, who was sentenced to three years in prison for arranging the murder of a man from Tajikistan and putting video of the killing on the Internet.
With Ms. Baburova’s death, Novaya Gazeta has lost four reporters to murder or other mysterious circumstances since 2000.
Michael Schwirtz reported from Moscow, and Graham Bowley from New York.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
[Click on the title to link to the source.]
NYTimes January 20, 2009
Leading Russian Rights Lawyer Is Shot to Death in Moscow, Along With Journalist
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
MOSCOW — A prominent Russian lawyer who spent the better part of a decade pursuing contentious human rights and social justice cases was killed on Monday in a brazen daylight assassination in central Moscow, officials said.
The lawyer, Stanislav Markelov, had just left a news conference where he announced that he would continue to fight against the early release from jail of Yuri D. Budanov, a former Russian tank commander imprisoned for murdering a young Chechen woman.
Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old journalist who was with Mr. Markelov, was also killed, according to a spokeswoman for a newspaper where she worked as a freelancer, Novaya Gazeta, which is highly critical of the government. The two were shot.
Officials said they believed that Mr. Markelov, 34, was the primary target, having brought cases against the Russian military, Chechen warlords and murderous neo-fascists. With a laundry list of his potential enemies, authorities refrained from naming any suspects.
“Investigators are looking into various theories, including that the murder was linked to the victim’s professional activities,” Vladimir I. Markin, a spokesman for the investigative wing of the Prosecutor General’s Office, said of Mr. Markelov.
The murder bore the characteristics of a contract killing, a not-uncommon phenomenon in Russia. Even so, the audacity of Mr. Markelov’s murder surprised some commentators.
“Even when organized crime in the 1990s was rampant, such a killing would have been considered bold and horrific,” said a correspondent from Vesti television.
Mr. Markelov, who was the director of the Rule of Law Institute, a civil liberties group, gained prominence recently representing the family of Elza Kungayeva. She was an 18-year-old Chechen whom Mr. Budanov, the former tank commander, admitted strangling in his quarters in March 2000, just as the second post-Soviet war in Chechnya was beginning to rage.
Mr. Budanov was sentenced to 10 years in prison but was given early parole for good behavior.
Mr. Markelov, at the news conference just before his death, told reporters that he might file an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against the early release of Mr. Budanov, who was a decorated colonel of the Russian Army before he was stripped of his rank. In an interview last week with The New York Times, Mr. Markelov said he might also file a lawsuit against the administration of the prison that released Mr. Budanov last Thursday.
The decision to free Mr. Budanov set off street protests and outraged some human rights groups and Chechen officials. It reignited long-simmering tensions years after a decade of intermittent war in Chechnya, a southern Russian republic, was replaced by tenuous stability.
But Mr. Budanov was also revered by nationalists as a valiant fighter who helped wage a bloody but necessary war against separatist rebels in Chechnya. Some now see Mr. Markelov’s murder as revenge for his efforts against a Russian hero.
“The murder of Markelov, I consider a bold open warning by the ‘party of war’ to democratic Russia,” Nudri S. Nukhazhiev, Chechnya’s human rights ombudsman, said in a statement. “Today, there are no facts or evidence of the direct participation of Budanov in this crime, but I am more than certain that it was committed by his supporters with his consent.”
Mr. Markelov phoned the father of Ms. Kungayeva, the slain teenager, a few days ago to complain that he had received death threats, the father told the Interfax news agency.
Lela Khamzayeva, another lawyer for Ms. Kungayeva’s family, was adamant, however, that the killing of Mr. Markelov could not be linked to his connection with Mr. Budanov, because his role during the actual proceedings against the former colonel was, as she put it, “insignificant.”
“If someone is trying to link this murder with Markelov’s participation in the Budanov case, well, that’s just ridiculous,” she said.
Given Mr. Markelov’s propensity for challenging the Russian authorities and others known to settle scores violently, the list of potential suspects is lengthy.
He worked closely with Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist with Novaya Gazeta and strong critic of Russia’s Chechnya policies, who was murdered in Moscow in 2006.
He often defended the interests of those, like Ms. Kungayeva, who became ensnared in the violent and often arbitrary military justice of the Chechen conflict or the tyrannical rule of Chechnya’s violence-prone leader, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, in the war’s aftermath.
“He handled almost every case opened as a result of the work of Anna Politkovskaya,” said Nadezhda Prusenkova, a spokeswoman for Novaya Gazeta.
While he was not involved in the current trial of three men accused in the murder of Ms. Politkovskaya, Mr. Markelov did work on the case of another murdered Novaya Gazeta journalist, Igor Domnikov, who died in 2000 from wounds caused by a hammer blow to the head.
Mr. Markelov has also represented victims of neo-fascist and xenophobic violence, a phenomenon that has been expanding annually both in frequency and intensity, according to experts.
At least 10 people were killed and 9 others injured in racist attacks in Russia in the first two weeks of 2009, said Aleksandr Brod, the head of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau, Interfax reported.
Ms. Baburova, the freelancer who was killed Monday, began working for Novaya Gazeta last October. She cited Mr. Markelov in her most recent article about fascist groups, published on Saturday.
In it, the lawyer criticized the authorities for their handling of a case against the leader of a violent nationalist group, who was sentenced to three years in prison for arranging the murder of a man from Tajikistan and putting video of the killing on the Internet.
With Ms. Baburova’s death, Novaya Gazeta has lost four reporters to murder or other mysterious circumstances since 2000.
Michael Schwirtz reported from Moscow, and Graham Bowley from New York.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)