Hassan Malik

The international community’s response to the recent and continuing flooding in Pakistan has been both inadequate and irresponsible, betraying a basic failure to understand the truly global implications of the crisis for international security. The reaction of governments around the world and the media coverage in particular further suggest a fundamental lack of seriousness in   addressing the very real problems at hand that are threatening the world community, and not just Pakistan.

While the early effort of the United States – including the donation of equipment, manpower and funds, as well as a vocal appeal for help to world leaders and Americans by the Obama administration – was admirable, the collective international response has been largely disgraceful. China, supposedly one of Pakistan’s closest allies, initially offered a paltry $1.5m before being shamed into increasing its pledge to $10m – still a pitiful figure in the context of China’s foreign currency reserves, which exceed $2.4 trillion. The United Arab Emirates – a state literally built by Pakistani and Indian laborers, service workers and executives – pledged an equally low $5m, per a self-congratulatory press release posted on the website of its Washington embassy. Qatar – another Gulf state that is always eager to buy international recognition through purchases of expensive toys abroad, and one that is sitting on some of the largest hydrocarbon resources in the world – pledged a mere $1.6m as of 30 August, according to a recent UN report. Singapore – home to one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world – pledged a mere $100,000, which is less than even what Afghanistan donated. Malaysia – a country that frequently critiques Western decadence and poses as a leader in the Muslim world – donated the same amount as war-torn Afghanistan. Irresponsibility does not rest solely with Muslim or developing nations, however. France, for all its blabbering about the international community and international society during the lead up to the Iraq war, when it could score easy points at the expense of the United States, at first pledged a mere $1m, and thus far has donated only $2.5m, according to the UN. Even the American response is hamstrung by Washington’s failure to stand up to protectionist interests at home and lift the tariff on Pakistani textile imports, holding back, by some estimates, $5bn in Pakistani export earnings in a sector that employs half the country’s workforce.

Media coverage has been remarkable for its at times almost cold-blooded treatment of the story. Some media outlets ran the expected heart-wrenching stories about victims but juxtaposed them with pieces describing the possible reasons for the poor response to the relief effort. One such item on the BBC’s website, for example, lists “donor fatigue”, “corruption”, “terrorism”, “timing”, and being the “‘wrong’ disaster” [sic] as justification for the poor international, governmental and grass-roots-level responses to the floods before reproducing a string of “selected”, uniformly unsympathetic comments suggesting, amongst other falsehoods, that the floods – the worst in 80 years – are merely another

monsoon. The Indian media, for its part, has had a field day over the initial reluctance of Pakistan’s government to accept India’s offer of $5m in aid (hardly a figure worthy of a “BRIC” economy aspiring to the UN Security Council), making no mention of India’s own initial refusals of aid during the tsunami in 2005. Such prominent narratives would lead us believe that Pakistan is either willingly digging its own grave or merely paying for past sins. Stories that mention corruption and duplicity in the Pakistani government and give scant attention to the very good work of Western NGOs and the UN (to say nothing of the many well-respected Pakistani humanitarian NGOs like the Edhi Foundation) only contribute to the reluctance of other governments and the larger global community to provide money and other forms of aid to Pakistan.

The international community’s tight-fisted response and the jaded portrayal of the floods in the public sphere diminish the significance of what can be described simply as a huge-scale humanitarian catastrophe of global consequence. With more than 170m citizens, Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world, and the second most populous in the Muslim world, where the United States and its allies are engaged in a struggle for “hearts and minds” that has now lasted for ten years. The disaster has flooded, literally, the heart of Pakistan, devastating heavily populated agrarian areas from North to South, directly affecting more than 1 in 10 Pakistanis, and indirectly exacting a heavy toll on a much larger percentage of the population.  Indeed, some estimates suggest Pakistani inflation may rise from the previously forecast rate of 9.5% to 25% in 2010-2011, while real GDP growth will almost certainly fall well short of the pre-flood target of 4.1%. Presently numbering nearly 20m (and the number is growing), there are more direct victims of the Pakistan flooding than there were of the Indian Ocean tsunami, Haiti earthquake, and Kashmir earthquake combined. Senior American diplomat Richard Holbrooke notes that the area underwater is larger than Italy. The number of people directly affected by the flooding is more than 10 times greater than those hit by Hurricane Katrina, according to some estimates, and yet the UAE offered some $100m to the US during Katrina, but offered only a tiny fraction of that figure to Pakistan in spite of the greater scale of the current disaster. There are more Pakistani flood victims than there are Palestinians in the world; yet the Palestinian cause has driven countries to war, while the Pakistani crisis barely motivates these same countries to act.

The unenthusiastic international response is not merely another moral failure of global society to aid its most vulnerable members (although, certainly, it is a new low). The trickle of aid flowing to Pakistan and the ambivalent media coverage of the disaster reveal that the international community has not grasped its scale or foreseen the potentially more serious and far reaching consequences of inaction.

As much as it may horrify the well-informed outside observer, the slow and halfhearted international response to their country’s plight is nothing new to many Pakistanis, who still remember the loneliness of the 1990s, at the beginning of which the U.S. was happy to drop its decades-long special relationship with Pakistan after the Soviets had left Afghanistan and India had opened its markets. During this time, Washington not only cut its open military cooperation with Pakistan, among other measures, stopping arms sales to the country, but famously even refused to return Pakistan’s advance payments for equipment that Washington refused to deliver.  In this context of isolation, the Pakistani security establishment accelerated its search for “strategic depth” and security guarantees – which took tangible shape in the Taliban and the Pakistani nuclear arsenal. Memories of the disappointment and abandonment experienced during those years run deep and wide in Pakistani politics – extending beyond the security elite to political groups of various stripes, and not without reason.

However, while suspicions linger on both sides, American-Pakistani relations have materially improved since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, exerting a positive influence on the region and, by extension, the rest of the world in the form of a united front against terrorism. Moreover, persistent rumors of ISI duplicity notwithstanding, the repeated militant attacks on military targets and heavy death toll among the Pakistani military and civilian population evince the Pakistani state and society’s genuine participation in the fight against extremist terror in the country.

Certainly, the international response to Pakistan’s current plight is a test of these improved relations. A positive American-led aid-effort would only continue the strengthening of Pakistan’s ties with the West and muffle the voices of those who oppose an alliance with it. However, failure to invigorate the response will further fan bad memories of a painful and recent past among Pakistanis, effectively handing a huge propaganda victory to the country’s extremist militants, who have been proactively exploiting the West’s tepid response to the disaster. Indeed, the recent reports of attacks by extremists on foreign flood-aid workers highlights the degree to which the extremists view foreign aid to Pakistan’s flood victims as a threat to their movement.

Success for the militants would undoubtedly hurt the West’s war effort in Afghanistan, but its significance would not end there. Global security would be greatly threatened should militant actions, by instigating further deterioration of an already grave situation, lead to the tearing apart of the world’s sixth most populous nation, with the attendant risk of military conflict as well as mass population movements and economic dislocation across borders

For example, the floods are a disaster economically not only for Pakistan, but for the broader region as a whole.  At least 2m tons of Pakistani wheat exports have been scrapped due to the flooding, placing additional pressure on global wheat prices after Russian exports were cut due to recent droughts and fires in the former Soviet Union. Exports of rice – of which Pakistan is the world’s third-largest producer – are forecast to fall by at least 22%. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Pakistan is the second-largest producer of chickpeas in the world – a cheap source of protein that is central to the diets of millions of people across the Middle East and South Asia. The higher food prices resulting from the current and projected shortages of such agricultural staples will hurt lower-income individuals worldwide, especially in those areas of the developing world that depend on Pakistani agricultural exports. Moreover, Pakistan’s diminished agricultural production capacity threatens to be a multi-year phenomenon as farmers are unable to plant the next crop because much of the country’s key infrastructure is literally under water. While an unexpectedly strong world agricultural surplus may help to steady markets for a while, the long-term stability of world food prices is very much at risk.

The sheer size of the population movements within Pakistan also presents a regional security challenge. The city of Karachi – the world’s third-most populous – is seeing large numbers of incoming refugees from the flood-zones, increasing the strain on already limited municipal resources and threatening the fragile peace among the various ethnic groups that live there. It is not out of the question that refugees could attempt mass migrations outside Pakistan. Such a “black swan” event could take the form of a flood of refugees to India, with destabilizing implications for the region.

In short, as much as Europe, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE may worry about the Iranian nuclear program or India may fret over the Pakistani bomb, the irony is that water may prove to be the real danger in that the floods have not only affected tens of millions of Pakistanis but threaten global security, both directly – in terms of the ongoing fight against terrorism – and indirectly – in terms of the broader social, economic, and political consequences of an insufficiently serious global response to the crisis.

World governments continue to ignore the scale and significance of the disaster in Pakistan at their own peril. Even if they attach no importance to the very valid moral and humanitarian reasons to help some of the poorest and most vulnerable members of the human family, governments around the world would do well to recognize that self-interest is also part of the case for helping Pakistan.

Hassan Malik is a PhD candidate in international history at Harvard University and previously worked in investment banking for J.P. Morgan and Troika Dialog in New York and Moscow after graduating from the University of Chicago. His article first appeared in the World Policy Journal.

Irshad Salim

NEW YORK: In a major move to bolster flood relief efforts and avert looming humanitarian crisis particularly in the south, the United States government at the request of the Pakistani civilian government, has added additional assets on the ground.

Four helicopters (U.S. Marine Corps CH-46 Sea Knight) arrived at Pano Aqil Air Base near Sukkur today, to prepare for relief operations in the flood-stricken area. 18 more helicopters are expected to arrive this week from Alaska.

The aircraft are the first four of what will eventually be 8 U.S. military helicopters at the southern air base. In partnership with the Pakistan military, they will support ongoing flood relief operations there in Sindh and Balochistan.

Two of the helicopters arrived from Ghazi Air Base in the north, while two arrived from USS Peleliu off the southern coast of Karachi. Additional helicopters will provide support from USS Peleliu which is docked near Karachi in the Arabian Sea.

According to reports, 18 U.S. Army helicopters from Alaska are arriving this week at Pakistan Air Force Base Chaklala in Rawalpindi. They will eventually move to Ghazi Air Base in the north near Tarbela Dam. They will replace the 15 U.S. military helicopters currently there, most of which will move to Pano Aqil Air Base in Sukkur, Sindh.

To date, U.S. military aircraft have rescued more than 11,000 people within Pakistan, and transported more than 3 million pounds of humanitarian assistance supplies, according to a State Department press release.

The United States has provided around $200 million in emergency humanitarian assistance to date and has urged the international community to step up to the plate. Saudi Arabia has quietly and discreetly provided similar aid, published reports said.

K Ashraf

Pakistan does not need a revolution. What Pakistan needs is Democratic Socialism.

The magic phrase about any successful system is: Confidence. The confidence in a system comes from equality, justice and sustainability. Rest of it is just detail, the details of the system, the way the implementers of the system implement it.

Every Tom, Harry, Dick is calling for a revolution in Pakistan. Some condors of the current system are even calling for a bloody revolution which kills hundreds of thousands of people. The others are asking people to take over everything they can get their hands on.

The first kind of revolution is being propagated by Mian Shahbaz Sharif of PML N the other kind of revolution is being propagated by Mr. Altaf Hussain. One can imagine what kind of revolution it will be if it is led by either of them.

First, a revolution needs a revolutionary party and leadership to bring revolution in a country. Pakistan does not have both. Therefore, there is a remote possibility that revolution will ever take place in Pakistan.

The elk of people who are talking about revolution in their dreams are far off from the social, cultural, and political realities of Pakistan. They even do not understand the nature of the current economic system in the country. However, what they talk about in their sleeps is nothing but the symptoms of the economic disaster the country is facing.

For example, the corruption which everyone from TV show hosts, commentators, analysts and some of the politicians talk about is not the disease in itself. It is a symptom of a larger economic problem. Similarly, poverty is not a disease in itself, but it is a symptom of a larger economic problem. Growing violence in the society is not a disease in itself, but it is a symptom of a larger economic problem. Same is the case with other challenges Pakistani society is facing for a while now.

The bottom line of all these problems is a larger economic problem. What is that larger economic problem?

The current economic system does not enjoy the confidence of the people who live under this system. Anyone who thinks, the ruling elite have confidence in this system, he is sure seriously mistaken.

Today, Pakistan’s ruling elite is the most corrupt in the whole world. Why is it so? It is so because they do not have the confidence in the system. If they had confidence in Pakistan’s economic system they won’t commit corruption and stash away money and put in foreign bank accounts. They do it because they know this system can collapse anytime and they can lose every thing they have.

Poverty is growing at exponential rate in Pakistan. With natural calamities the growth rate of poverty has sharpened to dangerous levels. Sixty, seventy percent Pakistanis are living in red economic zones. From the red economic zone, I mean, the worst possible economic conditions.

Revolution is not the answer. Revolution is not the answer, because there are no revolutionaries in Pakistan. Those who would lead revolution in the name of revolution would not be any different than the current breed of rulers we have in Pakistan. They will be rather worse as they won’t have any clear vision of a workable system for Pakistani society.

Here we will not talk about the Soviet, Chinese or Cuban revolutions. They have had their own social, cultural, political and economic problems. Pakistanis do not need to go through all that to create a credible social, cultural, political and economic system.

What Pakistan needs is Democratic Socialism. From Democratic Socialism, I mean a system which brings required changes in Pakistan’s social, cultural, political and economic systems through concerted social, cultural, political and economic activism.

Pakistan needs to lead itself at fast pace to reform its social, cultural, political and economic systems to build confidence, widespread justice, create equality and sustainability in the system for every citizen of Pakistan.

Is it doable? Yes, it is doable and achievable? Who will do it? The current leadership, I doubt they have the ability or they understand the nitty-gritty of what Pakistan needs.

(The views of the author and the commentors do not necessarily reflect those of PKonweb. PKonweb reserves the right to remove or edit comments that are posted)

Irshad Salim

NEW YORK: A Pakistan Army delegation called off its trip to U.S. upon arrival at Dulles airport in Washington after its members were reportedly mishandled by officials of Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

The 8-member delegation of Pak military officers were on their way to Tampa, Florida at the invitation of the CENTCOM.

Citing Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) sources, Geo News reported that the delegation at the invitation of Central Command (CENTCOM) arrived at Washington airport in USA today but called off the trip when Airport Security security officials misbehaved with the military officials.

According to published reports, once inside the United Airlines plane, one of the delegation members (a Brigadier) remarked that he hoped the flight proved to be their last flight and they soon reached their destiny. However, a passenger who overheard them mistook the officials for terrorists. The airport security staff was alerted, who “questioned the Pakistani delegation and misbehaved with them”.

The army delegation has been called back to the country, it has emerged. The US Defense Department strongly deplored the incident and apologized, sources said.

The delegation included senior officials from all three services, the army, the navy and the air force. “Military authorities in Pakistan decided to cancel the visit and call the delegation back,” said ISPR.

Pakistan is said to be the front-end ally of the United States in the so-called war on terror. The incident apparently remains unreported in U.S. media.

Irshad Salim

NEW YORK: Angelina Jolie has called the devastating floods in Pakistan an economic and social catastrophe, not just a humanitarian crisis.

Jolie, who is the United Nations’ Goodwill Ambassador has appealed to the world community to come forward and donate as more help is needed for Pakistan’s flood victims.

In a video appeal released today, Jolie addresses the international community and says: “One fifth of Pakistan is under water. Thousands of people died in the initial flooding and the threat of diseases now loom over 20 million affected people. This is not just humanitarian crisis, it is an economic and social catastrophe.”

The more support we can give, the greater number of tents, food, clean water and medicine will get to the people in need, Jolie says.

Angelina Jolie has visited Pakistan on three previous occasions since becoming a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador in 2001. At the outbreak of the current crisis she donated US$100,000 to the agency for its assistance work in the country.

Jolie’s Pakistan flood appeal video is available on the YouTube.

WATCH VIDEO of Angelina Jolie’s appeal for more help for Pakistan flood victims:

A man slaughtered his wife and three young daughters over a domestic dispute in Muridke near Lahore.

The man, identified as Shaukat, drugged his wife and daughters prior to murdering them. He later fled the scene with his youngest son.

According to initial reports, Shaukat committed the gruesome murders because he was not happy with the marriage of his 11-year-old daughter Samina, reported The Express Tribune.

Shaukat remains at large.

CRASH OF AIRBUS 320 OUTSIDE ISLAMABAD NOW BELIEVED HIJACKED, HEADING FOR NUKE FACILITY

Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor
Veterans Today exclusive

August 29, 2010 Islamabad: Informed sources in the Government of Pakistan have told Veterans Today that they are developing “hard evidence” indicating the Air Blue Airbus 320 that crashed July 28th outside Islamabad was a terrorist hijacking tied to rogue American security forces operating inside that country.

Sources indicate that the plane crash was an unsuccessful hijacking attempt intended to crash into the nuclear weapons facility at Kahuta, outside Islamabad. Such an attack may have been blamed on India and would likely have led to retaliation which could easily have escalated to a nuclear exchange between these two nations that have spent decades at each other’s throats.

Suspicions were raised inside Pakistan’s military and intelligence organizations when American military contractors employed by Blackwater/Xe showed up on the scene immediately after the crash, seizing the black box and “other materials.” There is no confirmation that parachutes or electronic equipment had been removed when Blackwater/Xe security relinquished control of the crash scene to Pakistani investigators.

Royal Television in Islamabad, owned by the brother of the head of Pakistan’s powerful JI (Jamate Islami), the Islamic political party, has reported that investigations are underway tying American based contractors to the planning of the attack.

Pakistan’s ISRP (Inter-Services Public Relations) has failed to confirm this but private sources indicate that an active investigation of these allegations is, not only underway but has established ties between an American group and the hijackers.

Military and intelligence officials inside Pakistan, in concert with the American embassy, are withholding all official details of the investigation and are likely to continue doing so.

This same facility had been the subject of an armed penetration by American contractors, believed to be employed by the State Department, in 2009. Four Blackwater employees, armed and possessing explosives were arrested outside the Kahuta nuclear facility in 2009. The four, driving a Jeep 4×4 and possessing advanced surveillance and jamming equipment of Israeli manufacture, were intercepted 1.5 miles from the Kahuta nuclear facility.

The four spoke fluent Pushtu and were dressed in a manner as to resemble Taliban fighters. The order for their release, given by Minister of the Interior Rehman Malik, is an issue of considerable controversy between the civilian government in Pakistan and the powerful military.

The passenger jet with 152 on board slammed into a hillside in what was believed to be Pakistan’s most serious air crash. At least 2 Americans were believed to be on board but, a month later, the US Embassy in Islamabad has left this unconfirmed. Reports received today, however, confirm that at least 5 Americans, military contractors said to be employed by Xe, may also have been on the craft but could not be identified as they had been traveling in local garb and had boarded with false identification.

Xe is an American based military and intelligence contracting firm formerly known as Blackwater and has been the subject of considerable controversy for activities inside Pakistan.

Sources indicate that the attackers stormed the cockpit in a hijacking attempt. The pilot is said to have jammed the flight controls, careening the Airbus 320 and all aboard into a hillside rather than allowing the plane to be used in a “9/11″ type attack inside Pakistan or flown into Indian air space for a repeat of the 2008 Mumbai attack.

Pakistan has, at times in error, referred to American contractors employed by the Departments of Defense, State or the Central Intelligence Agency as Blackwater. However, it is believed the majority of such employees are, in fact, members of that organization or is derivative, Xe.

The same group, often criticized for irregularities in Iraq, has been contracted by the Central Intelligence Agency to operate Predator drones inside Pakistan, operations that have resulted in a significant number of civilian deaths and said by political leaders of several factions to do little but recruit terrorists.

Link: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/29/gordon-duff-americans-believed-involved-in-pakistan-air-crash-hijacking/

(Gordon Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran, and Senior Editor at Veterans Today.)

Irshad Salim

NEW YORK: Former CIA agent Duane Clarridge, who was indicted in 1991 in connection with the Iran-Contra affair, has reemerged in Pakistan.

According to website wsws.org, Clarridge is now running one of many Pentagon-funded private contractors operating in Pakistan to provide intelligence to the US military.

Only this time the feisty former intelligence officer, who left the agency more than 20 years ago, is back in the saddle as a private citizen in the ongoing covert war to “reconstruct or deconstruct” Pakistan. Pick your choice depending on which side of the philosophical plain of the so-called “war on terror” you are saddled on.

The Los Angeles Times reported, back in 2004 that the former intelligence operative joined forces with a group of conservative activists, shortly after his departure from the CIA.

That group used Ahmed Chalabi as a vehicle to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq and replaced him with a pro-American head.

Clarridge has even been accused of forging the infamous Niger letter that led to the infamous series of lies to Congress known simply as weapons of mass destruction, wrote Jayne Lyn Stahl, in Online Journal. Stahl is a widely published poet, essayist, playwright, and screenwriter, member of PEN American Center, and PEN USA.

Fred Branfman reporting in AlterNet said about Clarridge: “Latin American Station Chief Duane “Dewey” Clarridge organized, trained, and operated local paramilitary and death squads throughout Central and Latin America that brutally tortured and murdered tens of thousand of civilians.”

According to published reports, documents declassified during Bill Clinton’s administration, show that covert operatives were placed inside Chile to destabilize Allende’s government, and prevent what was feared to be a Marxist takeover. Allende was replaced with Pinochet. Clarridge at that time was CIA’s Latin American Station Chief.

“I’ll bet you can’t count more than 200” who were killed under Pinochet during his notorious bloody coup, said Clarridge to an interviewer. “Sometimes, unfortunately, things have to be changed in an ugly way.” For simply “national security interests.”

While Clarridge retired, the CIA hasn’t, and is said to play a large part in destabilizing efforts in Pakistan and Iran, notes Stahl.

The private contractors in Pakistan helping US military Ops may now be taking commands from Duane “Dewey” Clarridge, Stahl observes.

President Obama as well know has not only continued, he has in fact expanded the murderous operations that were waged under the banner of the “war on terror” by the CIA and Pentagon during the Bush administration. The recent NY Times lengthy article, “A Secret Assault on Terrorism Widens on Two Continents”, details it all.

CIA’s drone missile attacks have been dramatically intensified against alleged insurgents inside areas of northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. At least 700 Pakistani civilians were killed in these attacks during 2009. The number in 2010 is much higher. These strikes continue with impunity in the flood-ravaged country.

According to the article, the CIA and military operatives involved in Afghan Jihad war are directing or intimately involved in the present operations in AfPak (Afghanistan and Pakistan). It’s not just Clarridge and so many yet unknown operatives out there in and around Islamabad carrying out both overt and covert activities. Most seem to have experience in fighting a “faceless” war.

Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Vickers, who oversees the Pentagon’s expanding Special Operation Command, was a senior CIA agent who helped direct its huge covert war to oust the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The CIA as is generally known, helped arm and train not only the Afghan mujahedin, but also assisted the thousands of Islamist militants from the Middle East, North Africa and Asia who passed through Al Qaeda (the Base) to fight in Afghanistan.

Vickers, along with Defense Secretary (and former CIA head) Robert Gates, was one of several top officials appointed by Bush and kept in place by Obama.

So you have three important covert war players in the Afghan Jihad Theater now War Against Terror Theater: Clarridge, Vickers, Gates.
And the White House is benefiting from “a unique political landscape,” in Pakistan with support garnered from all major players – Peoples Party, ANP, MQM – including PML-Nawaz. The Kerry-Lugar-Berman – a bipartisan aid bill for Pakistan, and promises of more, bind these parties’ hopes and wishes together.

In a sign of things to come, according to the article, Obama last month appointed John Bennett to head the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, formerly known as the Directorate of Operations.

Among his previous assignments, Bennett headed the CIA’s Special Activities Division, which handles highly sensitive spying and paramilitary missions.

According to Newsweek, his last posting was as CIA station chief in Islamabad, where he was intimately involved in supervising drone missile strikes inside Pakistan.

Has all these led to destabilizing Pakistan? “Obama’s extension of the Afghan war into neighboring Pakistan, has not only undermined the government in Islamabad and triggered a dangerous civil war, but is destabilizing relations with India and throughout the Indian subcontinent, the article observes,” observes wsws.org in its news analysis.

“As the US aggressively pursues its interests through military means—overt and covert—its actions cut directly across the strategic interests of other major powers such as China, and threaten to provoke broader conflicts.”

Given the above developments and likely scenarios, Gen Kayani’s three-year extension in tenure, becomes not only significant but meaningful. Measures to preempt coming even close to the corridors of power by the right-wing popular Nawaz party and affiliates are already in the works. It is in nobody’s interest – whether it is the international players or the establishment to let this happen, said one observer.

Too much is at stake. It’s reconstruct Pakistan or deconstruct Pakistan.

It’s a regional issue, no longer a Pakistan, an Afghanistan, or for that matter a Pakistan-Afghanistan issue, said another observer.

Shall we then see some peaceful democratic change in the way Pakistan is being governed now?

My answer to that is probably a yes! How soon? Don’t know. Ask the croupier, the dice is already loaded!

To be continued…

In the program “Policy Matters” (Dunya TV, August 28)), Hamid Mir (of Jang and Geo) mentioned recovery of Gwadar as one of the achievements of civilian governments.

He made the same statement in another television program some time ago and also in one of his columns.

Either he did not know the whole truth or did not want to tell it. In the process, he must have misinformed lakhs of viewers and readers.

The fact is that the government of Prime Minister Feroz Khan Noon paid a huge sum (8,400,000 in 1958 dollars). Is getting back the country’s own territory by paying a huge amount “an achievement?”

The story of cash for territory was first published in The Civil and Military Gazette, the second biggest English daily of Lahore. The embarrassed government denied it vehemently. However, there was deafening silence when Time magazine published the same story a week later.

Noon himself admits having paid money. “Compensation had to be paid naturally, …(“From memory,” by Firoz Khan Noon, page 299″) He admits that he did not consider using force due to fear of Britain, whose protectorate was Oman. “If the Pakistan Army were to occupy this territory, would the British Government start bombing a Commonwealth country [Pakistan] of which Queen Elizabeth was symbolic head?” (same page). He also admits that negotiations, started in 1949, did not result in getting back the territory mainly due to British pressure. Ultimately, it was Britain that negotiated the deal. (Not Akbar Bugti, as claimed by Mir.) Rather than swallowing uncritically a half truth fed him by somebody, Hamid Mir should have gone for the full truth. If he cared about his credibility and reputation, that is.
–
Allah Hafiz!
Muhammad Abd al-Hameed
Author, “Ghurbat kaise mit sakti hai”

READ BELOW—->>>

GWADAR: The Sons of Sindbad

TIME, September 22, 1958

One of the last remaining foreign-flag enclaves on the continent of Asia was erased last week. In the first international cash-for-territory deal since the U.S. paid $25 million for Denmark’s Virgin Islands in 1917, the republic of Pakistan purchased the sun-blanched, 300-sq.-mi. peninsula of Gwadar (pop. 20,000) from the Sultan of Muscat and Oman. Price: $8,400,000 cash and a percentage of any oil ever found on Gwadar’s rainless shores.

Gwadar, which in the Baluchi language means Gateway of Winds, has been a haven for Arab seamen since the fabled Sindbad the Sailor cruised its coasts. The place passed into the hands of the Sultans of Muscat and Oman in the 18th century when Syed, heir to the Muscat sultanate, tried to seize the throne, failed, and fled across the Arabian Sea to escape his father’s wrath. Gwadar at that time belonged to the Khan of Kalat, who welcomed Syed in princely fashion and made him a handsome offer. “You can have the revenues of as much land as you can see,” declared the Khan. The wily Syed shinned up the tallest date palm in sight and laid claim to everything on the horizon. Syed later made peace with his father, whom he succeeded. But he continued to collect Gwadar’s revenues, and Gwadar passed into the possession of the sultanate.

Maidens & Dhows. Gwadar was then the haunt of pirates and pearl divers. Later, in the iQth century, its freebooters prospered by procuring black-eyed Persian maidens for sale in Arabia’s slave markets. The British, lords of India and protectors of Muscat, ended this racket. Since World War II smuggling has been Gwadar’s chief industry. As the new republics of Pakistan and India, trying to husband their precious foreign exchange, clapped stern restrictions on luxury imports, the enterprisers of Gwadar took to their dhows to keep Karachi’s shops well filled with the restricted items. When the Pakistanis tried to check the flow with a fleet of patrol boats, the smugglers installed powerful diesel engines in their dhows, sped to secret rendezvous with mysterious tramp steamers far offshore, then raced for the Gateway of Winds faster than Pakistan customs launches could follow. From Gwa-.dar the smuggled stuff poured into Pakistan’s markets by camel train, fishing boats and trailers pulled by souped-up Chevrolets along the sandy beaches.

Last Killing. Last week’s sale, accomplished under Britain’s good offices, came as no surprise to the freewheeling middlemen of Gwadar. In anticipation that Pakistan’s customs restrictions would soon surround them, the smugglers had changed their occupation to just plain importers, stuffed their mud-walled warehouses and piled the beachfronts with great dumps of cosmetics, transistor radios, automobile parts, nylons and U.S. cigarettes. The Pakistanis, too pleased at plugging the hole to begrudge Gwadar its last killing, ran up their green and white flag and announced that they hope to develop the place as a navy and air base, eventually to deepen its shallow port until it ranks after Karachi as the republic’s second seaport.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,863885,00.html#ixzz0xxoYCPMh

LONDON: Pakistan are embroiled in a match-fixing scandal after allegations emerged on Saturday night that elements of the current Test match against England at Lord’s were rigged.

Mazhar Majeed, a 35-year-old London-based businessman, has been accused of accepting £150,000 from an undercover journalist in return for telling Pakistan fast bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif to deliberately bowl three no-balls last Thursday and Friday.

Last night, a 35 year-old man was arrested by police on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud bookmakers. Pakistan team manager Yawar Saeed confirmed that Scotland Yard police officials had questioned him and several players in connection with the allegations.

“They have spoken to me and I have tried to answer their queries,” he said. “We will cooperate all the way with them in these investigations.”

Yawar denied reports that officers had confiscated mobile phones and laptops or that police had found money stashed in players’ hotel rooms. “That is not correct,” he said.

Asif confirmed he had spoken to team officials. “The management have told us something happened, but not what,” he said. “The management will tell us more later.”

Video footage of the meeting between Majeed and the News of the World reporter, who was posing as part of an Asian gambling syndicate, shows the businessman accepting the money and insisting that the three no-balls “have been organized” with the Pakistan team.

“This is exactly what’s going to happen, you’re going to see these three things happen,” Majeed said. “I’m telling you, if you play this right you’re going to make a lot of money, believe me.”

Amir and Asif did bowl three no-balls at the times specified by Majeed: Amir’s first ball of the third over and Asif’s sixth ball of the 10th over last Thursday, and the third ball of Amir’s third over on Friday. On each occasion, the bowlers overstepped the crease by a significant margin.

Yesterday, Pakistan were teetering on the brink of defeat, still trailing England by 331 runs with six wickets remaining in their second innings.

Majeed’s allegations about corrupt behavior within the Pakistan camp also extended to other senior squad members. He claimed up to seven players could be ‘bought’ for cash.

“I’ve been doing it [match-fixing] with them for about two-and-a-half years and we’ve made masses of money,” Majeed said.

“I manage 10 of the players, I do all their affairs like contracts, sponsorship, marketing, everything really. The players would never tell anybody else. They were the ones who actually approached me about this.

“This is the beauty of it. I was friends with them for four, five years and then they said this happens. These poor boys need to [do this]. They’re paid peanuts.”

Majeed, a property tycoon who has a controlling stake in non-league football club Croydon FC, allegedly attempted to fix elements of the Third Test at the Oval, only for his plans to fall through. He told the reporter that a deposit of £150,000 would be required to fix the result of a Test.

Majeed also claimed that Pakistan’s one-day games with England had been earmarked for rigging. Pakistan are due to play five 50-over games between Sept 5 and Sept 22, together with two Twenty20 internationals.

If proven, the claims will cast a huge shadow over the perceived integrity of world cricket, and Pakistan in particular.

The sport in Pakistan is already in turmoil as no international matches can be staged in the country due to security concerns.

Pakistan have been at the centre of match-rigging claims before, notably in 2000 when former captain Saleem Malik and bowler Ata-ur-Rehman were found guilty of fixing.