Buddhist Statue in Pakistan (Credit: timeslive.co.za)ISLAMABAD, July 7 — Pakistani police seized a large number of ancient Buddhist sculptures that smugglers were attempting to spirit out of the country and sell for millions of dollars on the international antiquities market, officials said Saturday.
The stash included many sculptures of Buddha and other related religious figures that experts say could be over 2,000 years old. The items were likely illegally excavated from archaeological sites in Pakistan’s northwest, said Salimul Haq, a director at the government’s archaeology department.
The northwest was once part of Gandhara, an ancient Buddhist kingdom that stretched across modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan and reached its height from the first to the fifth century.
Police seized the items Friday from a 20-foot (6-meter) container in the southern port city of Karachi that was being trucked north toward the capital, Islamabad.
NATO tankers at Torkham border (Credit: nation.com.pk)WASHINGTON, July 3 — Pakistan told the United States that it would reopen NATO’s supply routes into neighboring Afghanistan after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was sorry for the deaths of two dozen Pakistani soldiers in American airstrikes in November, officials from the two countries said Tuesday.
The agreement ended a bitter seven-month stalemate that threatened to jeopardize counterterrorism cooperation, complicated the American troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and cost the United States more than $1 billion in extra shipping fees as a result of having to use an alternative route through Central Asia.
Mrs. Clinton said that in a telephone call on Tuesday morning to Pakistan’s foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, they had agreed that both sides made mistakes that led to the fatal airstrikes.
“We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military,” Mrs. Clinton said in a statement that the State Department issued but that officials said had been coordinated with her Pakistani counterpart. “We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again.”
The accord came together on Monday in Islamabad after weeks of behind-the-scenes phone calls, e-mails and meetings between one of Mrs. Clinton’s deputies, Thomas R. Nides, and a top Pakistani diplomat, American and Pakistani officials said. The agreement reflected a growing realization by Pakistani officials that they had overplayed their hand, misjudging NATO’s resolve, and a recognition on both sides that the impasse risked transforming an often rocky relationship into a permanently toxic one at a critically inopportune time.
Mrs. Clinton and her top aides, working closely with senior White House and Pentagon officials, carefully calibrated what she would say in her phone call to Ms. Khar to avoid an explicit mention of what one top State Department official called “the A-word” — “apology.” Instead, Mrs. Clinton opted for the softer “sorry” to meet Pakistan’s longstanding demand for a more formal apology for the airstrikes.
Still, the deal carries risks for both governments. Critics of Pakistan’s weak civilian leadership assailed the accord as a sellout to the United States, and it offers potential fodder for Republicans who contend that President Obama says “sorry” too readily.
“The apology will lower the temperature on U.S.-Pakistan relations,” said Shamila N. Chaudhary, a South Asia analyst at the Eurasia Group who served as the director for Pakistan and Afghanistan at the National Security Council. “However, relations are not on the mend. They remain very much broken and will remain so unless the two countries resolve broader policy differences on Afghanistan.”
As part of the agreement, Pakistan dropped its insistence on a higher transit fee for each truck carrying NATO’s nonlethal supplies from Pakistan into Afghanistan, after initially demanding as much as $5,000 for each truck.
In the end, Pakistan agreed to keep the fee at the current rate, $250. In return, the administration will ask Congress to reimburse Pakistan about $1.2 billion for costs incurred by 150,000 Pakistani troops carrying out counterinsurgency operations along the border with Afghanistan, a senior American official said.
The November airstrikes, which hit in Pakistani territory in response to reports of militant activity in the area, killed 24 soldiers. In response, Pakistan closed the supply lines and worsened relations already badly frayed by the shooting death of two Pakistanis by a Central Intelligence Agency security contractor and by the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Soon after the strikes, the White House decided that Mr. Obama would not offer formal condolences to Pakistan, overruling State Department officials who argued for such a show of remorse to help salvage relations. Pentagon officials also balked, saying that the statements of regrets and condolences from other American officials had been sufficient and that an apology would absolve Pakistan’s military of any blame in the accident.
Even those in the administration who advocated apologizing did so almost exclusively for practical reasons, such as getting Pakistan on board with the stalled Afghan peace process, officials familiar with the discussions said.
Pakistan, at times, seemingly undermined its own effort to obtain an expression of contrition. The administration was seriously weighing an apology when Afghan insurgents hit multiple targets in simultaneous attacks on Kabul in April, officials said. American military officials quickly linked the attacks to the Haqqani network, a Taliban faction that operates out of Pakistan’s tribal areas on the Afghan border. The apology would wait.
In May, days before a NATO summit meeting in Chicago, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan earned a last-minute invitation to the talks when it looked as if a deal to reopen the supply lines might be at hand. But no deal materialized.
After that failure, Mr. Nides and Pakistan’s finance minister, Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, were designated by their governments to begin negotiating. Mr. Nides, a former executive at Morgan Stanley, and Mr. Shaikh hit it off, and began swapping e-mails and phone calls to work out a political deal.
At the same time, according to officials, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani army chief of staff, was pressing his government to resolve the issue, which had put Pakistan at odds with the more than 40 countries with troops in Afghanistan whose supplies were affected.
Pakistani officials said they had misjudged NATO’s ability to adapt to the closing and use an alternative route through Central Asia. That rerouting carried a high price: Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said it was costing up to an extra $100 million a month.
Last weekend, Mrs. Clinton telephoned her congratulations to Pakistan’s new prime minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf. But it was Mrs. Clinton’s increasingly cordial relationship with the young Pakistani foreign minister, Ms. Khar, 34, that paid dividends in resolving the dispute, American officials said.
Several weeks ago, Mrs. Clinton began working on drafts of the statement she released on Tuesday, and at one point began discussing the language with Ms. Khar, a person with knowledge about the process said. “This was jointly done,” said the person, who, like half a dozen other officials from both countries, spoke on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic protocols.
Also over the weekend, Mr. Nides arrived in Islamabad, joined by Gen. John R. Allen, the American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and James N. Miller, the Pentagon’s top policy official, for meetings with their Pakistani counterparts. On Monday, they put the finishing touches on the agreement. “The Nides visit this past weekend pushed it over the line,” one senior American official said.
In Pakistan on Tuesday, the decision to reopen the supply routes was met with a general sense of befuddlement and muted criticism that the government had given up a much-trumpeted increase in transit fees for NATO trucks.
But government officials were at pains to claim that the accord had never hinged on higher fees. “I am glad that this breakthrough is not part of any transaction,” said Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States. “We are playing our role as responsible global partner in stabilizing the region.”
Still, opposition politicians criticized the move and demanded more of an explanation from the Pakistani government and military.
“Now government should let the people know about the terms and conditions for reopening the NATO supply lines. What were the demands?” said Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a former foreign minister and leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, a popular opposition political party led by the former cricket star Imran Khan.
Enver Baig, an opposition politician belonging to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, referring to the Americans, complained: “They did not apologize. They said ‘sorry.’ ”
Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Matthew Rosenberg from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Farida Afridi (Credit: tribune.com.pk)Peshawar, July 5: Farida, belonging to the Afridi subtribe Kokikhel, was targeted on Wednesday morning at 6.30am when she left her house in Tehsil Jamrud Ghundi Kali for her office in Hayatabad.
“She was cornered by motorcyclists who shot her and she died on the way to Jamrud hospital,” said witness Abid Ali. Farida was 25.
Along with her sister Noor Zia, Farida was committed to social change and economic emancipation for women from the platform of a welfare organisation called the Society for Appraisal and Women Empowerment in Rural Areas (SAWERA). Both women were among the founding members of the NGO and had a Masters degree in Gender Studies.
Due to tribal customs and traditions, women in the area remain mostly restricted and unable to achieve their true potential, but Farida broke all barriers and relentlessly worked for women’s development. “We have lost a great member of our team,” said Lal Jan, the technical advisor of the organisation.
To increase women’s involvement in the social and economic sphere, a few educated and aspiring women, including Farida who was still in school at that time, established SAWERA in 2004. The NGO works for the rights of women and children’s rights in the tribal belt.
Farida had three sisters and four brothers and she was the second eldest. She belonged to a poor family that had no personal enmity, Lal Jan said.
In an interview for The Express Tribune published in September 2011, Farida had said: “The government is oblivious to the general attitude of tribesmen towards women and the extent of inequality in our patriarchal society. This pushed us to start a struggle for their empowerment.”
The sisters faced tough resistance when they told their family about the path they had chosen for themselves. “We told our parents that we would work in accordance with our religious and cultural traditions, assuring them that we would never let the family honour suffer because of our line of work. Finally, they agreed,” Noor had said.
Syed Afzal Shinwari, project coordinator in Community Appraisal and Motivation Program (CAMP), said that SAWERA started small but is now an influential organisation. “Because of this brutal act, women in Fata will be discouraged to work and development will come to a halt,” he said.
Condemnation
“Both government and security agencies will be sleeping and people like Farida, Zartif Khan, Khan Habib Afridi and Mukarram Khan Atif will be mercilessly killed. We, the participants of civil society organisations in Peshawar, strongly condemn this tragic death and vow to raise our voice against this tyranny and brutality at the hands of anti-state elements who have been given a free hand to kill people from the civil society,” civil society group Strengthening Participatory Organisaion said in a statement.
The End Violence Against Women/Girl alliance in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata also condemned the murder.
Farida’s struggle and efforts towards the empowerment of tribal women will never be forgotten.
Desertification is like skin cancer. If soil is the skin of earth, desertification is its cancer. Desertification can be caused by natural reasons such as prolonged droughts and anthropogenic reasons, such as deforestation, over grazing livestock on rangelands, wrong methods of irrigation which cause water logging and salinity. Desertification is affecting lives and livelihoods of 1.5 billion people around the world who depend upon subsistent agriculture and livestock grazing in the dry land countries of the world.
More than 50% of agricultural land is moderately to severely degraded now. With soil erosion 75 billion tons of fertile soil disappears every year while 12 million hectares per year is lost due to drought and desertification, an area with the potential to produce 20 million tons of grain every year. Six million km2 of dry lands bear a legacy of desertification. Due to land degradation 27,000 species lost each year and 70 to 80 % of expansion of cropland lead to deforestation.
We are living in a planet which is now subjected to red alarm; according to an estimate by millennium eco system assessment, world population is increasing by 150 people per minute, carbon dioxide (a global warming gas) increasing by 6,150 ton per minute, tropical deforestation is going on with a fast rate of 25 hectares per minute, while desertification is advancing by 23 hectares per minute and each year 12 million hectares of fertile land (half of UK size) is turned into desert, which could grow 20 million tons of grains.
United National Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is a global treaty which was negotiated to fight against desertification. The UNCCD made its presence felt on June 17th at Rio+20 conference at Brazil by organizing a grand Land Day, which was star studded by many head of UN agencies in a round table dialogue. “Zero land degradation” was the topic of the day. But do the delegates and heads of the state in Rio have the slightest idea about the future when in twenty years the demand for food, energy and water will rise to significant 40-50%, with increasing population. Land and soil are perhaps taken for granted and the top policy and decision makers are not willing to pay attention to this emerging issue of land degradation and desertification.
Land has so far not attained the profile equal to climate change and biodiversity; although these three babies (conventions of biodiversity, climate change and combating desertification) were born at Rio at the famous Earth Summit in 1992, but the “land baby” couldn’t get equal attention and care of her parents, like her siblings.
We know very well that the planetary environment is a single integral entity. The planet is warming up as a result of carbon and other gases, so where can we take zillions of tones of atmospheric stocks of carbon? Of course in the soil, and with land degradation, biodiversity is also lost, so we see a definite synergy here.
Zero land degradation looks like a super ambitions slogan at Rio+20, but do we have another easy choice to get rid of carbon dioxide, the notorious global warming gas? Of course not. We can’t simply continually ignore people suffering from hunger and malnutrition in dry lands of Africa and elsewhere. We have to catch this bull by the horns and deal with this accordingly.
In the context of UNCCD, much of the discussion currently is around soil science, perhaps because we have lots of people who are experts in soil sciences. Soil is no doubt important, but let’s not forget that soil is integral part of land, which has a direct relevance with “non-scientific” issues like land governance, secure tenancy rights to landless farmers and pastoral community and agrarian reforms. These are politically sensitive issues but have direct repercussion on the degradation of soil and food production system.
Private sector is trumped and touted as a savior of agriculture and deteriorating livelihoods of poor. But beware of global trend of land grabbing in disguise of investment on agriculture in poor countries. Land grabbing has become a threat to food production, security and food sovereignty in many dry land countries. Acquisition of large chunks of common community by multinational has set direct competition in access to land for food cultivation by local communities on one hand, and access to land by the multinationals for cultivation of non-edible crops and in particular agro fuel. The land grabs deprives small farmers and pastoral communities of their nourishing base which is land.
Pakistan has ratified the convention in 1997, but still has to demonstrate any serious effort to reverse desertification, as a dry land country, it is subjected to severe desertification in its rain fed and irrigated areas. Pakistan Government is also restless to embrace land grabbers in the mask of “corporate agriculture farming (CAF) companies”, who are eying Pakistan’s fertile lands to grow grain and export to their own countries, leaving local population “food insecure”.
As a nation we failed to protect our ecology and our land, a high rate of deforestation, urban encroachment in agricultural areas, water logging and salinity, over grazing and whole sale clearing of soil from vegetation for getting fuel wood is pushing us towards land that is fast turning into desert.
The need of time is to take this issue on war footing, promote massive trees plantation, saving existing forests from logging, discourage land mafia from occupying forests, leasing forest lands for CAF and “yaksaala” (1 year lease for cultivation in Tharparkar and other areas) and over grazing. We have to give up flood irrigation and adopt modern water thrifty irrigation techniques such as sprinkler and drip irrigation.
The government has to come forward and formulate a comprehensive agrarian reforms policy which could support farmers in attaining modern irrigation and soil conservation climate smart agriculture. The policy of corporate farming should be replaced by “cooperative farming” in which cooperatives of agriculture graduates should be supported to establish highly productive but eco-friendly farms.
Tanveer Arif, CEO SCOPE Pakistan, is an environmentalist and a land right activist. He is associated with UNCCD since 1992 as civil society member.
ISLAMABAD, June 27 — Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Wednesday demanded that the nation’s brand-new prime minister follow an order to reopen a long-dormant corruption case against President Asif Ali Zardari, setting up the likelihood of a continuing constitutional crisis.
The court last week disqualified from office Yousuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan’s longest-serving prime minister, whom it convicted of contempt in April because he refused to follow the same order.
Some political and legal observers have accused the court, headed by populist, corruption-battling Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, of working to destabilize an already shaky civilian government. Ashraf and his predecessor maintain that Pakistan’s constitution grants the president immunity from prosecution, but the court has consistently ruled otherwise, saying no one is above the law.
The legal and political upheaval has complicated U.S. efforts to broker a compromise with Pakistan to reopen vital NATO supply routes that pass into landlocked Afghanistan through Pakistani territory. The routes have been shut for more than seven months, creating a logistical headache not only for the Pentagon but also for other international forces, including France’s, that require access to Pakistan’s southern port to withdraw vast quantities of materiel from Afghanistan.
Zardari has denied the corruption allegations, which date to the 1990s and involve Swiss bank accounts held by the president and his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister who was assassinated in 2007. Gilani for months refused to write a letter to Swiss authorities asking them to reopen graft and money-laundering cases against Zardari.
The court on Wednesday gave the new prime minister until July 12 to respond to its directive and offer any arguments as to why he need not pursue the corruption charges.
Some analysts predict that Ashraf will be in the job for only a few weeks — the time the court will take to consider his response and hand down a ruling that, observers say, will almost certainly require Ashraf to write the “Swiss letter.”
“The new prime minister is facing the same situation” as Gilani, said S.M. Zafar, a longtime lawyer in Islamabad. “He could write the letter, or he could take some middle ground that is acceptable to the court as well.
“But if that doesn’t happen, then I see a disaster in the coming days,” Zafar said. “The crisis would worsen further.”
Other analysts said that the court’s respect for the rule of law is admirable but that it also can go too far.
“There is a place for judicial activism in almost every country, particularly one in which the rule of law has all too often been conspicuous by its absence,” Mahir Ali, a columnist for the English-language newspaper Dawn, wrote Wednesday before the latest court ruling. “But the rule of law does not mean rule by the Supreme Court, which has no right to be a substitute for parliament.”
The public view of government leaders here remains exceedingly negative; Zardari was rated unfavorably by 85 percent of Paki¬stanis polled in a Pew Global Attitudes survey whose results were released Wednesday, and only 34 percent approved of Gilani.
And not surprisingly, after a year of contentious dealings with the United States, about 74 percent of the respondents said they “consider the U.S. an enemy,” Pew said, up five points from last year’s survey. The public, which overwhelmingly opposes CIA drone strikes inside Pakistan, also offers dwindling support for joint efforts with the United States against Islamist extremists.
“Moreover, roughly four-in-ten believe that American economic and military aid is actually having a negative impact on their country, while only about one-in-ten think the impact is positive,” Pew said.
Pollsters said their sampling of 1,206 Pakistanis represented about 82 percent of the population. For security reasons, interviews were not conducted in several regions, including the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
The military continues to rank as the nation’s highest-regarded national institution, with 77 percent saying it has “a good influence on the country,” the report said.
Imran Khan, a cricket star turned politician who is pushing a fiery anti-corruption message in his campaign for prime minister, was again ranked most popular among national leaders. He was rated favorably by seven in 10 Pakistanis, essentially unchanged from last year.
Taliban bases in Afghanistan (Credit: longwarjournal.com)
PESHAWAR, June 25 — A relatively rare cross-border raid into Pakistan by Afghan-based Taliban militants killed at least 13 Pakistani soldiers, the military said Monday.
Pakistani officials have long faced criticism from the Americans and Afghans for failing to stop similar militant assaults in the opposite direction, and they lashed out against their neighbors over this attack, which was in the northwestern border district of Dir.
In Islamabad, the Foreign Ministry said it had called in a senior Afghan diplomat to protest “the intrusion of militants from the Afghan side.” And the new prime minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf, said he would raise the matter with President Hamid Karzai.
A senior Pakistani military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that more than 100 Taliban militants armed with heavy weapons had crossed the border in the attack. After initially reporting six soldiers killed and 11 missing, the official later said that seven of the missing had been “reportedly killed and then beheaded.”
A Pakistani Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack and said the militants had killed 18 soldiers. “We have bodies of 17 of them,” said the spokesman, Sirajuddin, who uses only one name, speaking by phone from an undisclosed location.
Pakistani Taliban fighters fled into Afghanistan starting in the summer of 2009 after a major assault by the Pakistani military on the Swat Valley in northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province.
Across the border, the militants took refuge in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces; they have since strengthened their presence in those areas as American forces have withdrawn. Pakistani officials say that two senior Taliban commanders — Maulana Fazlullah from Swat and Faqir Muhammad from Bajaur — are sheltering there, while their fighters use Afghan territory to mount attacks in Pakistan.
The most violent attack occurred in August last year when Taliban fighters killed at least 30 Pakistani soldiers along the border in the Chitral district, north of Dir. The Pakistani military has since deployed a large contingent to the area.
The situation in Dir and Chitral is the mirror opposite of that of the Waziristan tribal agency, farther west along the border, where large numbers of Pakistani, Afghan and foreign fighters train and plot attacks inside Afghanistan.
American military officials are particularly angry that the Haqqani network, which has carried out some of the most spectacular attacks in Kabul and other major cities, has an apparently free hand to operate in North Waziristan. Obama administration officials say they are unsure whether Pakistan’s powerful intelligence services are assisting such cross-border attacks, tacitly acquiescing to them or incapable of stopping them.
The Pakistani Taliban, on the other hand, are intent on attacking Pakistani forces. Sunday’s attack in Dir, the third this month, shows that, as NATO troops leave Afghanistan, the militants are using that territory to mount attacks.
Residents of Dir said the militants were operating from a base just over three miles from the border, where there is no visible Afghan or NATO presence.
Asylum seekers in capsized boat (Credit: expresspakistan.net)
PESHAWAR, June 27: Dozens of Shia tribesmen fleeing sectarian unrest in the Kurram tribal agency were on board a boat that capsized off the coast of Australia earlier this month, officials and tribesmen told The Express Tribune on Tuesday.
The ferry carrying asylum-seekers from Pakistan and Afghanistan sank some 200 kilometres off Christmas Island, according to Australian authorities. At least 16 of them have been confirmed dead.
At Christmas Island, the Australian government has set up case processing and detention facilities for illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers.
Australia’s Maritime Safety Authority said 110 persons had been rescued, 90 were missing and 16 bodies had been retrieved by rescue teams and taken to the island.
“Families have told me that 125 of the asylum-seekers on board the vessel were from Kurram Agency,” Kohat Division Commissioner Sahibzada Anees confirmed to The Express Tribune.
“Of them, 76 have been traced while the rest are missing,” Anees said and added that he has directed the tribal administration to prepare a list of the victims.
Residents said that 125 of the 140 Pakistani asylum-seekers on board the boat belonged to the Shia community from Parachinar, the main town of Kurram Agency, where sectarian tension has been running high for the last four years. The rest belonged to the Hazara community of Quetta who are also Shias by sect.
“One of my cousins, Gul Hussain, has been rescued, but he is seriously injured,” said Ali Turi, a Shia tribesman from Parachinar who works at a Peshawar-based NGO. “My friend, Imdad Hussain, is among those missing and believed to have drowned.
According to Ali, 175 people from Kurram Agency have gone abroad on student visas, while another 90, mostly young men, have taken refuge in Australia. About 250 are in Indonesia trying to sneak into Australia.
Another resident of Kurram, Shahid Kazmi told The Express Tribune that the asylum-seekers included his friend Mujahid Hussain who is also believed to have died.
He said that Parachinar Students in Australia, a student body, had informed the families about the tragedy. (With additional input from News Desk)
PPP nominee for Prime Minister, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf (credit: pakistanileaders.com.pk)When former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who would have turned 59 on Thursday (June 21), wanted to share what she was privy to, she paid scant respect to the Makhdooms or anyone whose name had a string of prefixes or an overlong honorific. One of Pakistan’s most charismatic leaders, Bhutto would summarily dismiss from her presence men who went on to become the PM, foreign minister and even the interior minister in her husband Asif Ali Zardari’s Cabinet.
Her ideological moorings were always with the educated middle class, and the poor drawn to her by her uncanny ability to connect. As the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government headed by President Zardari — a government, and party, indisputably now of the elite — replaces the Prime Minister who, at his bidding defied the highest court and was summarily disqualified, with another and yet another, Pakistan is gripped by a crisis anew.
How long before the new Prime Minister(s) go down the same route? How far will the SC go in punishing a PM, when it is the President, accused of corruption, who is the actual target? While the immunity that the Presidential office gives a sitting President makes it almost impossible to prosecute Mr Zardari, how will the judiciary, which has “played executive, judiciary and legislature”, set this in motion? A judiciary that is no longer playing to the ISI.
The clamour for fresh elections to be overseen, not by Mr Zardari but by an independent caretaker government, is growing shriller. But the President will fight it tooth and nail. Already, in choosing the path of least resistance he is treading with caution. If “polls” do come to shove, much rests on whether son, heir and party president Bilawal Bhutto has understood that it’s time to reclaim the party from the clutches of the Zardari rich men’s club and chart an independent course.
That the confrontation with the CJ has brewed for some time is no secret. And clearly, reports that the trigger to annul the National Reconciliation Ordinance which allowed the Bhutto-Zardari couple as well as another former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, to return home from military-imposed exile, stemmed from Mr Zardari’s unwillingness in 2009 to extend the Chief Justice’s term, is deeply troubling. As is the imputation that the sudden disqualification of Mr Gilani only came into force because the PPP dirty tricks brigade had systematically thrown mud on CJ Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry’s son Arsalan, and by that token the CJ himself, in a bid to undermine the judiciary.
In fact, the SC ruling two months ago seemed to sort of settle the matter by giving outgoing PM Yousaf Raza Gillani a 30-second (!!) punishment, while the Speaker of the House’s rejection of the SC’s ruling was met with silence. In not appealing against the judgment, it’s clear that Mr Zardari never intended reconciliation.
His strategy: stretch out the theatrics for as long as possible, play both martyr and victim and milk the sympathy wave for yet another legitimate PPP government.
But here’s the rub. The CJ-led judicial protests, which tasted political success in engineering the exit of Musharraf, and set it on a path of confrontation with the Zardari leadership has surprisingly widespread support. There are many in the Opposition, the establishment and the PPP who are exulting in what they see as the end of a PPP government that has moved away from the ideological moorings that once made the PPP so feared by the military-ISI. They want re-engagement with Washington. They want to redial 2007. They want the Taliban back in the box.
“This is not our PPP, it’s the PPP masquerading as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and mohtarma’s (Benazir) party,” said a supporter at Bibi’s birthday celebrations in Lahore. “The hope that she held out for a better Pakistan when she returned has dissipated,” he said. And this is the tragedy that stalks this nation. This elected civilian government will join the ranks of all the others that have not completed their term of office. And the clear political overtones of the battle being waged by the SC, against this government — imperfect as it may be, though it’s unclear at who’s behest — puts a huge question mark over Pakistan’s troubled path to democracy.
While the Army was once the game-changer, sending the infamous Rawalpindi Xth Corps wheeling into the capital, to lay siege to the PM’s house, today that dubious distinction is held by the judiciary. The judiciary’s aim is to ensure this Parliament no longer stands in the way of prosecuting Mr Zardari. This is why the man he picks as his PM is the key. The constitutional powers invested in the PM are the only armour the President has left. Mr Zardari, however, is working on an additional tack: appoint one tainted man after another — Makhdoom Shahabuddin is accused in an ephedrine scandal, and Raja Pervez Ashraf is allegedly involved in power plant kickbacks — and wait for the sympathy wave to build up as each man falls afoul of the law.
With the SC in the driving seat, however, Mr Zardari may soon be a President without a government. Pakistan, back to shadow boxing as usual.
Divided Kashmiri Families Across Neelum River (credit: tribune.com.pk)
KERAN, June 10: Hundreds of Kashmiris on Sunday staged an emotional demonstration on the banks of a fast-flowing river to urge India and Pakistan to withdraw troops from the disputed Himalayan region.
On the Pakistani side, tearful relatives waved across the gushing Neelum – which separates the two countries – to their family on the Indian side, using loudspeakers to try to speak to them, an AFP photographer said.
But the deafening roar of the river – about 200 feet wide at the village of Keran – was too loud for the cries to carry across to the Indian side.
About 600 men and women gathered by the river in Keran, about 90 kilometres northeast of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Many migrated to Muzaffarabad in 1990 to escape violence.
The gathering, called by nationalists, was a rare occasion – the authorities do not normally allow such events on the river.
For Ashraf Jan, who left her mother and father to come to Muzaffarabad with her aunt in 1947, it was almost too much.
Overwhelmed with emotion, the 70-year-old had to be stopped by relatives from jumping in the furious river to try to reach her ageing parents on the Indian side.
“Let me go. I just want to see my parents and after that if I die, I will be in peace,” she said.
Indian police and military did not allow Kashmiris on the other side to come near the river bank and they were left to wave from a distance.
Kashmir was split in the aftermath of independence on the subcontinent when British rule ended in 1947. Both India and Pakistan claim the entire territory, which is divided by a heavily militarised Line of Control (LoC).
The LoC is heavily guarded on both sides and strictly off-limits.
Though Kashmiris can cross the border via a special bus service started in 2005, it requires lengthy clearance procedures at both sides, meaning few go.
Arif Shahid, president of the pro-independence Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Conference, urged India and Pakistan to divert their military spending to help poor people in both countries.
“India and Pakistan are wasting money on arms when millions of people have to sleep without any meal every night. They should withdraw troops from Kashmir and liberate us so that they are able to work for the welfare of their citizens,” Shahid said.
There are nearly a dozen Kashmir militant groups fighting for the divided Muslim-majority region to become part of Pakistan and over 47,000 people have been killed since the outbreak of a separatist insurgency in 1989.
But militant violence has dropped sharply in Kashmir since India and Pakistan started a peace process in 2004.
WASHINGTON — With the end in sight for Hamid Karzai’s days in office as Afghanistan’s president, members of his family are trying to protect their status, weighing how to hold on to power while secretly fighting among themselves for control of the fortune they have amassed in the last decade.
One brother, Qayum Karzai, is mulling a run for the presidency when his brother steps down in 2014. Other brothers have been battling over the crown jewel in the family empire — the largest private residential development in Afghanistan. The conflict over the project, known as Aino Mena, has provoked accusations of theft and extortion, even reports of an assassination plot.
“It’s family,” Qayum Karzai said. “They get upset, and over time they get over it. I hope they get over it.”
One Karzai brother is also said to have imprisoned a longtime Karzai aide in an effort to make him disclose the whereabouts of money and assets that relatives suspect were hidden by Ahmed Wali Karzai, another of President Karzai’s brothers and the political boss of southern Afghanistan who was assassinated last year. He was often accused of benefiting from the Afghan opium trade and an array of corrupt deals, though he denied such claims.
The looming withdrawal of American and NATO troops by 2014 from the still unresolved war, along with President Karzai’s coming exit, is causing anxiety among the Afghan elite who have been among the war’s biggest beneficiaries, enriching themselves from American military contracts, insider business deals with foreign companies, government corruption and narcotics trafficking.
“If you are one of the Afghan oligarchs, where you put your money and where you live is an open question now,” Seth Jones, an analyst at the RAND Corporation, said. “That means you are thinking about moving your money and finding a backup option about where to live.”
The president’s family — many of whom are American citizens who returned to Afghanistan after an American-led coalition toppled the Taliban in 2001 and brought Mr. Karzai to power — are among those who have prospered the most, by the accounts of many Afghan businessmen and government insiders.
Several political observers in Kabul said any candidacy by Qayum Karzai, a longtime Maryland resident who has served in the Afghan Parliament, would be a long shot because of the nation’s fatigue with Hamid Karzai and widespread resentment over the rampant corruption that has tainted his government.
Even some of the Karzai family’s own business partners are among the critics.
“We have an illegitimate and irresponsible government because of Karzai and his family,” said Abdullah Nadi, an Afghan-American developer from Virginia who is a partner in the Aino Mena housing development, but who is trying to get out of the venture.
While exploiting their opportunities in Afghanistan, the extended Karzai family has for years simmered with tensions, jealousies, business rivalries, blood feuds and even accusations of murder. With the often-fractious family, it can be difficult to discern the truth, but everyone agrees that the conflict over control of its empire can be traced back to the death in July 2011 of Ahmed Wali Karzai, who had risen from working as a waiter in Chicago to become one of the most powerful men in Afghanistan, serving as the chairman of the Kandahar Provincial Council.
His murder, by an Afghan thought to be a loyal supporter, left a power vacuum in Kandahar — and in the Karzai family.
President Karzai appointed another brother, Shah Wali Karzai, to take on their slain brother’s role as head of the Populzai, the Karzai’s family tribe.
No one expected much from him. Quiet and reserved, he was largely overshadowed by Ahmed Wali Karzai, and even lived in his more powerful brother’s compound in Kandahar.
But Shah Wali Karzai has been transformed in the past year. In addition to his role as tribal chief, he serves as project manager of Aino Mena, the sprawling residential development on the outskirts of Kandahar being developed by AFCO, a corporation owned by another brother, Mahmoud Karzai, and his four partners.
They have built 3,000 homes, with plans for a total of 14,700. The developers are building on 10,000 acres, land that Afghan military officials have claimed was illegally seized from the Ministry of Defense.
Emboldened after Ahmed Wali Karzai’s death, Shah Wali Karzai appeared no longer satisfied to serve just as an employee at Aino Mena. At some point in the past few months, he created his own corporation in Kandahar and then secretly moved all of the cash from the housing development’s bank accounts to those of his new business.
According to several AFCO partners, Shah Wali Karzai had transferred about $55 million. “He simply opened another company, and put the money in that company,” Mahmoud Karzai said in an interview.
Mr. Nadi, one of the partners in Aino Mena, accused Shah Wali Karzai of forging his signature on documents to make it appear as if he had approved the creation of Shah Wali Karzai’s company as the new corporate parent of Aino Mena. “I had no clue what the hell was going on,” Mr. Nadi said in an interview.
When Mahmoud Karzai discovered what his brother had done, he demanded that Shah Wali return the money. But Shah Wali refused, and instead insisted that he be made a partner in Aino Mena. Mahmoud and his partners refused, and the two sides settled into a bitter stalemate.
Shah Wali Karzai does not deny transferring the money to his corporation. But he justified his actions by saying that he is protecting the money for the sake of the people of Kandahar. He has told others in Kandahar that if he had not taken the money, Mahmoud Karzai could have moved it to secret bank accounts in Dubai. Aino Mena would then have risked failure just like Kabul Bank, another of Mahmoud Karzai’s business ventures, he argued.
Mahmoud Karzai was a key figure in the scandal surrounding the near-collapse of the bank, which was Afghanistan’s largest, in 2010. It lost about $900 million in insider deals, much of which is believed to have ended up in secret bank accounts in Dubai. Last year, a federal grand jury in New York began a criminal investigation into Mahmoud Karzai’s business activities in Afghanistan, pursuing accusations of tax evasion, racketeering and extortion. No charges have been brought against Mahmoud Karzai, who is a United States citizen.
“The money belongs to the people of Kandahar,” Shah Wali Karzai said in a statement in response to questions about transferring the housing development funds. “They paid much of that money for the infrastructure at Aino Mena.”
He added, “When I became project manager, they owed money to the bank and local contractors, and all the money was paid off as I turned around that company from an almost bankrupt one to a successful one.”
Mahmoud Karzai said he and his partners have filed complaints with the Afghan attorney general, accusing Shah Wali Karzai of stealing their money and using extortion to gain a partnership stake in Aino Mena. The attorney general has refused to move against Shah Wali Karzai, apparently unwilling to get involved in what he sees as a family battle.
Qayum Karzai said he attempted to negotiate a settlement, but has backed off. “Tempers were flaring up,” he said in an interview. “I tried to mediate, but I failed.”
President Karzai has been reluctant to take sides in the family dispute, though his government has been drawn into the matter. The Afghan Central Bank has finally intervened, freezing the bank accounts of Shah Wali Karzai’s company. Mahmoud Karzai said a deal was in the works, but other partners said the dispute had not been resolved.
In the midst of the conflict, Afghan security officials uncovered a plot to kill Mahmoud Karzai. About two months ago, the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan domestic intelligence agency, identified at least three Afghans, including two former employees of the Aino Mena development, who had been involved in a plot to kill Mahmoud Karzai and possibly others. One man was arrested and later released. The two former Aino Mena employees implicated in the plot had both been fired by Mahmoud Karzai.
Afghan security officials have not accused Shah Wali Karzai of any involvement in the scheme. He denies any involvement in it, and Mahmoud Karzai said in an interview, “I refuse to believe that my brother had anything to do with it.”
Family members said that Shah Wali Karzai had also been trying to unlock the secrets of his dead brother’s fortune.
After Ahmed Wali Karzai was killed, his most trusted aide, Zamarai — like many Afghans, he uses only one name — moved to Dubai. Reports of his lavish lifestyle there fed suspicions within the family that Zamarai had access to riches hidden by Ahmed Wali Karzai, perhaps through accounts and properties that had been placed in Zamarai’s name.
When Zamarai returned recently to Kandahar — some family members claim he was lured back by Aziz Karzai, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Russia and President Karzai’s uncle, an account the envoy flatly denies — he was detained by security personnel working for Shah Wali Karzai, according to relatives.
Mahmoud Karzai says he believes that Zamarai knows the whereabouts of “one or two million dollars.” Others familiar with the matter say that Shah Wali Karzai suspects that Zamarai knows about hundreds of millions of dollars more hidden in Dubai and elsewhere, including assets in Afghan businesses and real estate.
Zamarai is being held at Sarposa Prison in Kandahar, where he is guarded by Shah Wali Karzai’s security personnel rather than the regular prison guards, according to several people familiar with the matter but who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from the Karzai family.
He has not been charged with any crime.
When asked through Gerald Posner, a Karzai family lawyer, about Zamarai and whether he is holding him, Shah Wali Karzai declined to comment.
