MQM chief Altaf Hussain (Credit: nation.com.pk)It was no coincidence that ethnic violence first broke out with the creation of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in 1985, shortly after Gen. Zia had held non-party elections as part of his plan to usher in controlled democracy.
That year, the Mohajirs led by a former Karachi university student, Altaf Hussain contested as independents and won a landslide victory. Encouraged by Gen. Zia ul Haq to organize on non- political grounds, the refugees from India mobilized in Karachi on the basis of their separate ethnic identity and registered as a political party.
In April 1985, I was tipped off by our crime reporter that gunshot victims had begun to pile up at a hospital in the north of Karachi. Word was that a speeding Pashtun mini-van driver had killed a Mohajir college girl, Bushra Zaidi. The accident itself was not news. Indeed, not a day went by when the newspapers did not report traffic deaths. Terrified of the speeding vehicles, the young women often held hands as they ran across this particular intersection. But that day, the young college girl that tried nervously to cross the road was struck down and died.
Bushra’s death became a cue for the unemployed Mohajir youth. They banded, in the newly armed MQM, to fan out throughout the city and destroy mini-vans dubbed “yellow devils.” They also burnt down rickshaws and taxis owned and operated by Pashtuns. It was a direct assault on the livelihood of the migrants from the north of Pakistan who bought their vehicles on high interest loans and raced their callously-stuffed passengers at high speeds so that they could repay the loan sharks. The Pashtuns reacted in the only way they knew; they shot back and killed the Mohajir assailants.
Government hospitals were caught unaware by the first major incident of ethnic violence under Gen Zia. The Abbasi Shaheed Hospital overflowed with victims of gunshot wounds. Medicines and blood were in desperately short supply. Frenzied crowds gathered on the lawns to donate blood and medicines for the victims, rushed in every few minutes by make-shift ambulances that were more suited to carrying vegetables than people.
For the next several days, the riots between Mohajirs and Pashtuns left 65 people dead and 158 injured. It was a vision of things to come. Over the next two decades tens of thousands of people would lose their lives as the MQM fought with the indigenous ethnic groups – Sindhis, Balochis, Pashtuns, and Punjabis – and the military alternately used and killed Mohajir youths in an attempt to wrest back control.
It was an era of the Cold War when the US Republican administration, led by President Ronald Reagan, used Zia’s regime as a conduit to fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. No sooner did the arms, bound for Mujahideen fighters, land at the Karachi Port than they were smuggled out and sold in the black market. The alacrity with which gun licenses were issued to ethnic groups made it appear that Gen. Zia preferred that they fight each other than fight his military rule.
Gen. Zia’s patronage of the MQM unfolded before our eyes. His ministers would call on the MQM chief Altaf Hussain at his home in Azizabad – a lower middle-class Mohajir neighborhood in Karachi. High walls cordoned off the MQM’s head-office – Nine Zero, Azizabad – also known as Markaz or the “Center.” At the Karachi Press Club, we talked about how Mohajirs had achieved the stuff of dreams: a lower-middle class party that kept key establishment figures waiting to meet their chief.
The MQM chief, Altaf Hussein’s personality lent an air of mystery to the party he had created. A dark-skinned man who wore dark glasses at all times, Altaf began the MQM as a movement for the rights of Muslim migrants from India who had arrived to create Pakistan. The MQM talked progressive politics, criticizing the feudals who oppressed Sindhis. But the MQM chief operated in a distinctly feudal style. Altaf Hussain projected himself as “Pir saheb” (spiritual leader), whose infatuated followers saw his likeness on the leaves around them.
Years later, MQM stalwart and former Karachi Mayor, Farooq Sattar acknowledged to me in a recorded interview what I had long known – namely, that in 1984, the “intelligence agencies allowed the MQM to come up to counter the PPP”. The purpose, he said, in a tone, that suggested that it was an open secret, was to prevent the Sindhis from gaining power.
The senior MQM leader referred to the 1983 Movement for Restoration of Democracy, through which tens of thousands of Sindhi villagers – who had protested against Gen. Zia’s execution of the elected prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto – were strafed by helicopter gunships in their own settlements. At the same time, Sindhi intellectuals, writers and journalists who supported the MRD were imprisoned and tortured by the military.
Decades later, the former Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Mirza Aslam Baig too acknowledged on television that the MQM was created by his predecessor, Gen. Zia ul Haq as a political measure to counter the Sindhi insurgency that grew after the murder of PPP founder, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
The press was still controlled by the military government but statements poured into Dawn from readers that the government ought to nationalize private wagons and buses and confiscate the driving licenses of reckless drivers.
In the forefront were educated Urdu-speaking professionals, bewildered by the sudden upsurge of violence. Their women councilors – many of them newly elected in Gen. Zia’s government – appealed for a ban on guns and for dialogue. But such expressions of hand wringing had nothing to do with the insidious workings of the military, which secretly patronized the ethnic party for political purposes.
Moreover, whilst educated Mohajirs were shocked by the violence, the reprisals by Pashtuns convinced many to organize as a political party. Since Pakistan’s creation in 1947, many Mohajirs had come to dislike the fact that they did not fit into a native ethnic group – Sindhis, Baloch, Pashtuns and Punjabis. Their feud with the Pashtuns convinced many that the Indian refugees needed a party to guarantee their survival. It would provide a groundswell of support for the MQM.
(Chapter 2 – Ethnic Violence in Sindh: The MQM Saga)
Afghan Grief after Massacre by US Soldier - (Credit: pressirtv)KABUL, Afghanistan, March 15 — Prospects for an orderly withdrawal of NATO forces from Afghanistan suffered two blows on Thursday as President Hamid Karzai demanded that the United States confine troops to major bases by next year, and the Taliban announced that they were suspending peace talks with the Americans.
Getting talks started with the Taliban has been a major goal of the United States and its NATO allies for the past two years, and only in recent months was there concrete evidence of progress.
And the declaration by President Karzai, if carried out, would greatly accelerate the pace of transition from NATO to Afghan control, which previously was envisioned to be complete by 2014. Defense officials admitted there was a major divide between Mr. Karzai’s declaration and the American goals of training the Afghan security forces and conducting counterinsurgency operations. Successful counterinsurgency requires close working relationships with rural Afghans to help build schools, roads and bring about other improvements.
Asked if it was possible to take all American forces out of villages by 2013 and still train Afghan security forces and conduct counterinsurgency operations, a senior American defense official replied, “It’s not clear that we would be able to.”
Mr. Karzai declaration came in reaction to widespread Afghan anger over the massacre by an American soldier of 16 civilians in Kandahar on Sunday, and the decision of the military authorities to remove the soldier from Afghanistan, which was reported on Wednesday.
The Taliban statement, issued in English and Pashto on an insurgent Web site, said talks with an American representative had commenced over the release of some Taliban members from the Guantánamo Bay prison, but accused the American representative of changing the preconditions for the talks.
The statement did not make clear what preconditions were objectionable, but the statement emphasized that the Taliban were only interested in talking with the Americans, and criticized “propaganda” about the talks that American officials had issued. Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban reached by cellphone at an undisclosed location, said the statement suspending the talks was genuine but declined to discuss it further.
It was unclear if the two developments might have been related. But both came to light just as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta had left Afghanistan after a tense two-day visit that included talks with Mr. Karzai, and the Afghanistan president’s announcement in particular appeared to be a surprise. On Wednesday, President Obama said in Washington that the timetable for an Afghanistan withdrawal would not change.
Defense officials traveling with Mr. Panetta in Abu Dhabi said that the tone of the meeting between Mr. Karzai and Mr. Panetta was more positive than Mr. Karzai’s statement would indicate, and that he made no demands of the defense secretary — suggesting that the statement was in part aimed at a domestic audience enraged not only by the massacre but also by recent Koran burnings.
The officials acknowledged that Mr. Karzai told Mr. Panetta during their meeting that American troops should be confined to major bases by next year, but the officials sought to publicly tamp down the differences and portray the two countries as working together. “Secretary Panetta said, ‘We’re on the same page here,’ ” the Pentagon press secretary, George Little, quoted Mr. Panetta as telling Mr. Karzai.
Mr. Panetta, speaking to reporters after the meeting, said he had told Mr. Karzai that the military pledged a full investigation of the massacre and would bring the gunman to justice. He said that Mr. Karzai had not brought up the transfer of the suspect, an Army staff sergeant, to Kuwait.
Although the move was likely to further anger Afghans, who had called for him to be tried in their country, Lieutenant Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, the No. 2 American commander in Afghanistan, told reporters that the Afghans had been informed of the move ahead of time, and he said that “their response is that they understood.”
General Scaparrotti said that the American military would likely not make the suspect’s name public until and if he was formally charged. He did not say when that might happen. “We are conscious of due process,” he said.
American officials said in recent weeks that there had been no talks of any substance since January, when Ambassador Marc Grossman, the United States special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and his team last visited the region. Even the meetings held then did little to move the process beyond the “talks about talks” stage, and the Afghan government had not yet begun to play any significant role in the effort, despite statements from Mr. Karzai to the contrary, the officials said.
The main obstacle appeared to be executing the first set of confidence-building measures: A prisoner swap that would transfer five senior Taliban leaders held at Guantánamo to house arrest in Qatar in exchange for a Westerner being held by the insurgents.
The plan faced a series of difficulties, notably uncertainty about what conditions the five Taliban would be living under in Qatar, and American lawmakers on both sides of the political divide expressed deep skepticism about the release of the insurgents.
Faced with substantial political opposition, the Obama administration wanted to wait to release the men until it could get a direct exchange for the Westerner, the American officials said. But it appeared Thursday that the Taliban had grown tired of waiting for the Americans to begin the process, and that the insurgents feared the conditions under which their compatriots would be housed in Qatar would be too restrictive.
“Acknowledging their involvement in Qatar talks was a significant move for the Taliban. They expected that the U.S. would move quickly with confidence-building measures,” said Michael Semple, a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. “The transfer of Taliban leaders to Qatar was top on the list. The Taliban announcement of suspending engagement in Qatar is a response to their frustration at the U.S.’s slowness to deliver.”
Mr. Semple said a series of crises to beset the Americans in the Afghanistan conflict since the start of the year had added another layer of uncertainty to the talks, emboldening Taliban hardliners to press back against the peace effort. “The Taliban also believe that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is in disarray and their hardliners want to take advantage of that by launching a new fighting season.”
Still, the Taliban statement appeared to leave open the door to a resumption of the process, terming their move a “suspension.”
Angry over its exclusion from the first round of talks, which involved the Taliban opening a political office in Qatar as well as the proposed prisoner releases, Mr. Karzai’s government has tried to establish its own track for peace talks, saying Saudi Arabia should be an intermediary, and sending its own envoy to Guantánamo to talk to Taliban prisoners.
The Taliban statement repeated previous declarations by the insurgents that they viewed Afghan government officials as puppets of the Americans and would not hold talks with them. “Hamid Karzai, who cannot even make a single political decision without the prior consent of the Americans, falsely proclaimed that the Kabul administration and the Americans have jointly started peace talks with the Taliban,” the statement said.
The Taliban were only at the stage of discussing prisoners and the Qatar office, the statement said, adding, “neither have we accepted any other condition with any other side nor have we conducted any talks with Karzai administration.”
On the withdrawal of American forces to major bases by 2013, Mr. Karzai said that Afghan authorities were capable of taking charge of security in rural areas. The massacre Sunday took place in a rural part of Panjwai District, in southern Kandahar Province.
The shooting suspect has been described by sources as a 38-year-old staff sergeant in the Second Battalion, Third Infantry Regiment, Third Stryker Brigade, Second Infantry Division based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State.
Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting from Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.
Balochistan on Map (Credit: news.bb.co.uk.)India hasn’t done it; neither has America nor Israel. I am behind the crisis; I created it and I am responsible as well as answerable. Yes, India and America, both opportunists par excellence, are now taking advantage of our weaknesses but no one can break Balochistan away from me but me.
Baloch demands have always been political in nature-political empowerment and economic freedom. Balochistan as a whole has never demanded secession and whatever the large majority has been asking for has always been within their constitutional rights. A large majority of Balochistan has always wanted-and continues to want-to remain within Pakistan’s constitutional and democratic confines.
Over the years, there have been three major Baloch demands: effective political representation, administrative control and an end to exploitation of indigenous resources. Over the years, Rawalpindi has always responded with a military solution. But, pure political problems have no military solutions. Baloch opposition has been-and is being-pushed from being political in nature to militancy and insurgency. The Baloch, in that sense, have been forced to pick up the gun.
The Army has always responded with three of its most favourite tools: an indiscriminate military operation, a divide-and-rule policy plus bribing the Sardars, the Mirs and the Nawabs. Imagine; dividing up your own population, using Pashtun religious elements against Balochs and strategizing that this would bring Balochistan under centralized control. Imagine; appeasing the Sardars but leaving the other seven and a half million Baloch residents marginalized both economically and politically. It never has worked nor will it ever work.
GHQ has no solution. What then is the way out? How can we keep Indian and American wolves at bay? As a first step, here’s a set of six recommendations from the International Crisis Group (ICG) that makes lot of sense: An immediate end to all military operations; release all political prisoners; no political role for any intelligence agency; produce all detainees before the courts; give provincial jurisdiction over policing and ensure local stakes over each and every provincial resource.
In the next phase, bring about a new Balochistan run by a representative political as well as administrative structure-and no more cantonments please. Why is Gwadar Port Authority’s head office in Karachi?
Why is the wellhead price in Sind and Punjab up to four times higher than for wells in Balochistan? How many Baloch residents sit on the Boards of PPL, OGDC or Sui Southern? To be certain, America is not going to determine the future of Balochistan. Neither will India or Israel. What I do in the following 360 days is what will determine the future.
One out of every two residents of Balochistan is below the poverty line. Only one out of every two residents of Balochistan has access to clean drinking water. Only one out of every two children goes to primary school. Only one out of every three children is immunised. Balochistan’s crisis is surely heading in the wrong direction and there is no military solution.
In a developing democracy, what is important is the systemic entrenchment through constitutional norms and uninterrupted electoral processes; the issues of public propriety and moral turpitude get sorted out as the democratic polity takes roots. Indeed, with each election, the system receives new vigour. The UK, the US and our neighbor India have all traversed this path. The Senate elections have taken the country one step forward in its democratic journey. Indeed, the elections point to many an interesting fact and development.
Firstly, this is the first post-constitutional reforms Senate elections. Now the upper house is occupied by the members who have been returned by the legislators elected in the 2008 general elections. Thus, the Senate elections have led to the expunction of the last vestiges of the Ziaul Haq and Musharraf era political system. True, many newly elected members may also have been part of the previous system, but now they stand on a much sounder constitutional pedestal. Yet, surprisingly this qualitative leap in the development of democracy has been lost on much of the political and media space. Why?
Actually, the alleged use of pelf and power in the elections has stimulated such a raucous debate on political morality that the underlying virtue of the graduating democracy has gone unnoticed. The media gurus do not reckon that democracy works like a mechanic in a garage, perennially engaged in fixing the malfunctioning vehicles. And that until the socio-political realities of the common men are transformed, the face of democracy would seem like a façade, carried on by the ruling elites. But even in the same democracy are latent the seeds of redemption for the shackled masses. Hence the cliché: even a bad democracy is better than autocracy.
Many of us were unhappy when General Ziaul Haq lifted martial law, in lieu of the infamous 8th Amendment to the constitution that drastically distorted the parliamentary system, and led to the dismissal of as many as four elected governments at the hands of the establishment-sponsored powerful presidents. Yet, a political process of sorts was triggered by the end of martial law. And a wish to revive the original 1973 Constitution remained kindling in the heart of every democrat worth his salt. The wish was finally realised much later by the present parliament, the very members who are berated day in and day out.
Secondly, the Senate elections have also shown that democracy not only reforms misgovernance but also chastens errant leadership. This time round, none of the parliamentary parties, not even the PML-N, allowed the system to crumble just to deny the PPP more seats in the Senate. It is a departure from the past when the political system was marred by perpetual confrontation and fissures and the main political parties — the PPP and the PML-N — went so far in hurting each other that they ignored the cost of their bellicosity. As a result, both suffered at the hands of the establishment.
Thirdly, the Senate elections have also set the course for the coming electoral alliances. One can now cautiously predict that the present coalition may give way to some kind of electoral understanding, if not an alliance. The fact that the PPP leadership has stitched together varied rather hostile political forces for more than four years reflects not just President Zardari’s ‘magical management’, but there is logic behind the coalition partners’ affinity. The PML-N is overtly anti-establishment, a fact not palatable to the PML-Q and possibly the MQM. And the PTI is too soft on the ‘fundos’, hence not acceptable to the PPP and the ANP.
Fourthly, the successful conclusion of the Senate election also shed a new auspicious light on our political system: the establishment’s power to stall or influence the electoral process seems to have been diluted by the ongoing democratic process. Politicians do not seem as pliable as they used to be in past decades. Probably that explains why President Zardari has survived so far and so successfully; why he has proved wrong all those who predicted the fall of his government before the Senate polls; and why he warded off an array of real and perceived threats — the contempt proceedings, the Memogate affair, and the Swiss case.
However, it is too early to say that the country is out of the woods as far as the establishment’s political ambitions are concerned. The country’s social and economic conditions are too precarious, requiring not only democracy but good governance. Hence, the PTI received much response from the despondent electorate. But of late, Imran Khan too is finding it hard to keep the momentum of his popularity going. Some pundits are already talking of his bubble having burst and pointing to his being present more on the TV channels than amidst the hordes of his ‘tsunami makers’. They attribute the fading of his charisma and puritanical politics to the entry of a host of tainted politicians into the PTI.
The other promising leader Nawaz Sharif may retain his popularity in his stronghold Punjab, but not enough to get a clear majority in the National Assembly. To be fair, he may not form the next government, not because he has lost his popular base to Imran Khan but because he has too many forces arrayed against him, including the establishment and possibly the US. Unless he relents on his anti-establishment rhetoric and takes back the powerful and wealthy rump of the PML-Q turncoats, his chances of capturing power are rather dim. Therefore the PPP-PML-Q-ANP-MQM alliance, bolstered by a Seraiki ethnic appeal, may still manage to retain much of the present count in the Centre and provinces.
The smaller parties and independents can also play a useful role in breaking a tie that may develop in a hung parliament. Their role may also be more pronounced if the seats are divided among all the major political parties.
Lastly, the Senate elections have aroused an interesting debate as to the ethical side of elections. The stories of big bucks being used to ‘buy’ votes (read the elected representatives) are being circulated in the media. A petition has been filed in Balochistan requesting the court to inquire into the alleged misuse of public funds to buy off provincial assembly members. Likewise, a technical hitch to the legality of by-elections has led to the passage of the 20th constitutional amendment, which ‘ensures’ a neutral interim government and an independent election commission.
Thus the train of democracy that has been derailed many a time before is now chugging along. It is has crossed many a station and many more are still to come. What is important is that it must not be allowed to be derailed. If it is, then there is no possibility of getting it back on track, let alone getting it to reach the destination — a peaceful, progressive and welfare state.
The writer is a lawyer and academic. He can be reached at shahabusto@hotmail.com
The Koran burning incident, which has raged in Afghanistan since the last couple of weeks, is symptomatic of the mutual misunderstanding with which the US and regional players have bumbled on for the last 10 1/2 years – with no clear goal in sight.
If the US goal in Afghanistan was to train the security forces to handle their own defenses, the incident of US soldiers burning the Koran outside Bagram prison – allegedly to thwart planning by Taliban soldiers against them – indicates that the decade long war has not taught American soldiers basic cultural norms of Muslim societies.
The Afghans have refused to buy the argument by US soldiers that the notes written on the Korans by Taliban prisoners may have been code words for an insurgency. Instead, the issue has touched a far deeper chord than the video of US soldiers humiliating the corpses of Taliban soldiers…which was repeatedly played in the US media.
The Koran burning incident has thrown world leaders into a bind. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, knowing that his fate will be decided by the Afghans after his US patrons leave, has turned to the Ulema (religious clergy) to defuse the crisis.
On the other hand, US President Barak Obama – with his multi-cultural upbringing – has apologized, but failed to contain the violence that has infiltrated into the Afghan security forces.
If the US had taken a leaf from history, it would found the need for greater sensitivity in a cultural milieu where tribal Afghans have fought off Western influences like the plague.
For example, the former Soviet Union was forced to end its modernity campaign in Afghanistan shortly after its invasion in 1979, after Russian literacy workers were murdered by conservative Afghans. Millions of Afghans migrated to Pakistan, where they coalesced into the Mujahidin. These “holy warriors” were subsequently funded and armed by the US against the Soviets in Afghanistan… in a movement that has fathered the Taliban.
Today, with history come a full circle, Afghan conservatism raises new challenges for the Obama administration.
The Koran burning issue has already spilled into Pakistan where the religious parties (who served as the mid-wives for the Taliban during the 1990s) have used it to capitalize on anti-US sentiment.
In Pakistan, the victimization of religious minorities and even Muslims suspected of sacrilegious acts mushroomed after 1984, when the Gen. Zia ul Haq’s military coup was followed by passage of the Blasphemy Laws to award the death penalty for insulting the Prophet of Islam and the Koran.
In 1994, I visited Gujranwala town in the Punjab to see how a Muslim who had even memorized the Koran, suffered the ultimate penalty for alleged blasphemy. The unfortunate Muslim, Hafiz Farooq Sajjad whose Koran caught fire…it is impossible to verify how it happened… was spotted by his neighbor while the Holy Book was burning, and reported he had burnt it on purpose.
As the news of the Koran burning spread through the town, the clerics announced it from the mosque. An angry mob descended on Sajjad’s home, tied him to the back of his motor bike and dragged him till he died of his wounds.
The most virulent Muslim sects have since emerged from the small towns of the Punjab – groups like the Anjuman Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan and the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi – who have singled out Shias, Christians, Ahmediyas and even Muslims for extermination.
Only last week the anti Iranian group, Jundullah took responsibility for singling out Shias traveling in a passenger bus in Pakistan’s northern areas – whence they were forced to disembark and shot on account of their sect.
In this complex scenario, where nations use religious and ethnic groups to fight proxy wars in the Pak-Afghan region, the dangers of religious extremism rise in proportion to incidents like Koran burning.
Indeed, as the Taliban claims military successes in Afghanistan… the religious extremists moving across the porous borders to Pakistan carry the seeds of intolerance that threaten to destabilize the nation still further.
If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience. – George Bernard Shaw
Bin Laden film settings (Credit: onenewspage.co.uk)Indians have protested against the shooting of a film by Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow on the hunt for Osama bin Laden on the grounds that the film-makers were portraying Pakistan on Indian soil.
Bin Laden was killed by US special forces in Pakistan in May last year.
The film-makers, denied permission to film in Pakistan, converted parts of the Indian city of Chandigarh to look like the Pakistani city of Lahore.
But for right-wing Hindus, the use of India to portray sworn enemy Pakistan was too much.
“They have made Chandigarh like Pakistan, as if it is Pakistan,” said Vijay Bhardwaj, a leader of the radical Vishva Hindu Parishad group.
“We strongly oppose this and we will not let them put Pakistani flags here and we will not let them shoot for the film.”
Billboards with Urdu signs were put up on shops in a market in the north Indian city and auto-rickshaws were running with Lahore number plates. Burqa-clad women and men dressed in traditional Pakistani clothes roamed the streets.
The small group of protesters shouted slogans and some of them were seen arguing with cast and crew members as police tried to intervene.
The protesters said the government should have denied permission to make the film on Indian soil.
Bigelow, who won an Oscar for her Iraq war movie The Hurt Locker, was developing a film on the hunt for Bin Laden before the al-Qaeda leader was killed in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad.
The film, Zero Dark Thirty, is due for release in late 2012.
Islamabad, Pakistan: Two Pakistani journalists filing reports home from Washington are quietly drawing their salaries from US State Department funding through a nonprofit intermediary, highlighting the sophisticated nature of America’s efforts to shape its image abroad.
Neither of the two media organizations, Express News and Dunya News, discloses that their reporters are paid by the nonprofit America Abroad Media (AAM) on their websites or in the reports filed by their correspondents. Though the journalists have worked under the auspices of AAM since February, AAM only made their links to the news organizations known on their website Wednesday, after being contacted by the Monitor.
The lack of transparency by the Pakistani organizations involved could heighten Pakistani mistrust of the US government, which is seen as having an undue level of influence in their country’s affairs.
“If an American journalist working as a foreign correspondent in Pakistan was paid in a similar manner, would it be morally or professionally acceptable for his news organization or audience?” asks Badar Alam, editor of Pakistan’s prestigious English-language Herald magazine.
The amount currently allocated for the project is some $2 million over two years from the public diplomacy funds allocated by the State Department, according to State Department officials in Washington familiar with the project. That includes salaries for the two correspondents – Huma Imtiaz of Express News and Awais Saleem of Dunya News – and a bureau for both TV channels.
Aaron Lobel, president of AAM, says his organization receives donations from a number of private funders, too, which it mainly spends on its programs on international affairs that run on Public Radio International in the United States.
The timing of AAM’s website disclosure – after contact from the Monitor – was a coincidence and the update had been planned for “several months,” he says. “We are a small organization with two web guys. They are really working hard on the new site – not just about the Pakistan project but on everything we do. Yes, it would have been better to have a lot of information [before]. We have been preparing this site for a long time to provide that information.”
“The content production is done first and foremost [by] Pakistanis who are here and work with their channels back home to produce content,” says Lobel.
Sometimes the Pakistani journalists and editors at home come up with stories. But AAM also holds production meetings where the group’s managing director, Aliya Salahuddin, suggests stories, says Lobel.
“I understand the fears that define the joint ventures that comprise the US-Pakistan relationship. [But] we are very proud we have a good relationship with Dunya and Express. It allows Pakistani journalists to cover the US with a Pakistani perspective. I haven’t encountered any Pakistani channel that doesn’t want to work with us,” he says, adding that AAM is hopeful of partnering with more Pakistani channels in the future.
Both reporters cover a wide variety of stories, some related to the US government and others not.
In her work for the English-language newspaper the Express Tribune, a respected national Pakistani daily that is a part of the Express Media Group, Huma Imtiaz regularly quotes unnamed US officials, at times from the State Department and at times from the Department of Defense.
In a story published Aug. 16, “Strings attached: Talk of US scorecard rubbished,” Imtiaz interviews a Department of Defense official who contradicts an earlier Wall Street Journal report that the US government was making decisions on aid based on Pakistani performance and cooperation.
She has also written for The New York Times, though not since drawing a salary from AAM, and published one essay for the Indian Express on being a Pakistani journalist in America when Osama bin Laden was captured. She also writes for Foreign Policy’s website, where she is credited only as the correspondent for Express News in Washington.
Awais Saleem’s reports include stories on cricket in Chicago and Pakistani fashion in the United States.
Neither reporter was willing to comment on the story.
Making a clear connection
AAM’s ombudsman, Jeffery Dvorkin, insists there is no US government involvement with content production.
“My role as ombudsman is to help AAM ensure there is no effort by its funders, including the government, to interfere with any of the content produced. Thus far, there have been no efforts of this kind. Secondly, AAM continues to make it clear to the government and to all funders that in order for AAM to proceed with this initiative, the government could have no involvement in content production or selection,” he says.
Mr. Dvorkin says his only misgiving was about Lobel’s ability to be the AAM’s chief fundraiser and remain involved editorially at the same time – an issue that has since been resolved with the imminent hire of new managing editor.
But the lack of transparency, particularly by the Pakistani news organizations, raises ethical issues for all parties involved, says Richard Wald, a journalism ethics professor at Columbia University in New York City.
“The essential question here is not who pays, but who knows who pays,” says Professor Wald. “In a correct world, if there were such a situation, people should make the connection clear – not simply to the editors and management of the Pakistani papers – but to the receivers of the information so they can judge it on their own.”
He adds there can be a place for government-funded access to reporting for things like equipment and travel so long as it is clear where the funding is coming from.
The State Department official counters that both the US government and AAM “encourage” the channels to make their ties clear. “We’re very proud of this program,” the official says. But eight months into the program, officials from AAM had not reached out to the channels regarding disclosure.
The official notes that this is part of a broader effort to reach out, including bringing Pakistani journalists to the US for short visits under the International Visitor Leadership Program.
Defending his newspaper’s decision not to disclose the source of Imtiaz’s funding, Express Tribune editor Mohammad Ziauddin told the Monitor: “The lady reports in conjunction with the [nongovernmental organization AAM]. The lady has been recruited by us in consultation with the NGO in a way we do not need to mention this. By putting that line we would be putting this into perspective but since we already edit [her stories] according to our thinking we do not need to. Editorially we sensitize it to a great extent.”
He adds that the process of building links with government officials is commonplace the world over. “I know a number of instances where a correspondent has landed in Pakistan and has been won over by our own information departments and briefed by our government agencies. Obviously they would like to keep his sources intact and at times he or she obliges [the government].”
Ziauddin adds that the partnership was conducted “as an experiment” and in the future the newspaper intends to pay for its own correspondent in Washington, just as they do in London.
Countering environment of misinformation
Christine Fair, a Pakistan expert and assistant professor at Georgetown University in Washington, says it is important to remember that the US government is operating in an environment of misinformation, where anti-US stories in Pakistan seeded by the Pakistani security establishment are commonplace.
“Is anyone calling them out on this? The Pakistani press is the freest press that money can buy,” she says, adding: “The larger story is the Pakistani media is up for sale to as many people want to buy it. This fiction is that the country is really benefiting from some independent media. The US government wants to get into this game to counter this ISI [Inter Services Intelligence] propaganda.”
Naveed Kashif, chief operating officer of Dunya News, also stated that since final control resided with the channel, they did not feel the need to declare the partnership with AAM to their viewers.
(Editor’s note: the original version of this story gave the incorrect name for the chief operating officer of Dunya News.)
Shias protest killings in Kohistan (Credit: nation.com.pk)Gunmen have killed at least 18 Shia Muslim bus passengers in a sectarian attack in the northern Pakistani district of Kohistan, officials say.
The attackers are reported to have checked the identity cards of all the passengers before removing the Shias and shooting them.
About 27 other passengers on the bus were spared.
Meanwhile, a Chinese woman was shot dead with a Pakistani male companion in the city of Peshawar, police say.
Bus attack
Kohistan is not known for militancy, but it borders the Swat valley, which has had a Taliban presence in the past.
The attack took place close to the remote and mountainous area of Harban Nala, approximately 130 miles (208 km) north of the capital, Islamabad.
Four buses were travelling in a convoy from the city of Rawalpindi to the northern town of Gilgit.
“Armed men hiding on both sides of the road attacked,” local police chief Mohammad Ilyas told the Agence France-Presse news agency. Local officials say that the men who ambushed the bus were wearing military fatigues.
It happened in an area dominated by Sunni tribes, Reuters quotes a policeman as saying.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has condemned the attack, insisting that such incidents would not deter the government in its resolve to fight “the menace of terror”.
Correspondents say that more than two-thirds of Kohistan’s 500,000 people live a nomadic life and move up and down the country in search of pastures.
Kohistan is 7,400 sq km of sheer mountains, rising from 2,400m (7,874 ft) to 3,700m (12,139 ft) with virtually no plains.
Sunni extremists allied to or inspired by al-Qaeda and the Taliban routinely attack government and security targets in north-west Pakistan, in addition to religious minorities and other Muslim sects they consider to be infidels.
The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad reports that there are frequently complaints from Shias that the Pakistani state does little to stop the attacks and has even released from custody notorious militants accused of carrying them out.
Last month more than 30 Shias were killed in an attack on a mosque in north-west Pakistan.
Chinese targets
The Chinese woman, 40, and her Pakistani companion, 22, were killed by gunmen on motorbikes while walking in the Kohati bazaar area in the historic centre of Peshawar, police said.
It was the fifth shooting or bomb attack in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province since Thursday, raising concerns that violence is worsening following a relative lull in recent months.
The father of the dead Pakistani said that his son had been working as a translator for the Chinese woman while he was on holiday from studying English literature at university.
The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that while a motive for the attack is unclear, it is not unusual for Chinese people to be targeted in Pakistan.
In 2009 a Chinese engineer was kidnapped in the Dir region of north-west Pakistan. He was released after five months
A Chinese beautician kidnapped during the Red Mosque siege of 2007 was released several months after being abducted
One of two Chinese engineers kidnapped by militants loyal to Taliban commander Abdullah Mehsud in 2004 was killed during a rescue bid by Pakistani forces.
US Congressman Dana Rohrbacher (Credit: historycommons.org)
When former Northern Alliance leaders met with a group of influential US congressmen and businessmen in Berlin in early January, the meeting made a lot of waves in Kabul, because it created the impression that a broad anti-Karzai alliance was in the making and that it had started to muster support in the US. Furthermore, the meeting’s participants released a press statement demanding the decentralisation of the country.
Kabul reacted with accusations of anti-constitutional activities. AAN’s Thomas Ruttig, who was in Berlin (but not at this meeting), looks at the context: anti-Karzai alliance building, the heated Afghan discussion about decentralisation, federalism and even ‘division of the country’. He starts even to wonder to what extent a Somalia or even a Katanga-type scenario* – a mineral resources-induced partition – might emerge, if this alliance were to develop.
There were two conferences organised by the (German branch) of the Aspen Institute in Berlin recently.
The first one took place on 9 January and it brought together three or four Afghan leaders, four US Congress members and few US businessmen. No one from AAN participated in this or contributed to it (or was even aware of it until after it was over). But because of the controversial issues discussed there – for example suggestions to decentralise Afghanistan – and later published in a press statement (the only official part of this conference was a small press conference to which – it seems – only hand-picked journalists were invited), this is the one I am reporting about below.
The second conference took place on 10 and 11 January, in the same Berlin hotel. It was co-organised by Aspen and the German Konrad Adenauer Foundation. It brought together a number of academia, analysts and politicians from different countries, among them from Afghanistan – but none of the Afghans leaders who had participated or contributed to the first conference (Mssrs. Zia Massud, Dostum, Mohaqqeq and Saleh) were there; one of the US congressmen was. Its results will be published, and written contributions to it are already available online.
This includes a paper which I have been asked to write about possible post-2014 scenarios and which is among those available online. This is a work of analysis, not of preferences. (Although I call the scenario of a partition of Afghanistan a ‘freak scenario’ and dangerous there.)
After having been informed about the character of the first conference, I clearly stated at the second conference that issues that concern the political system in Afghanistan and possible changes to it need to be discussed, but decisions about this are the prerogative of Afghans only. Foreigners should keep out from making even recommendations. The same statement you will find in my blog below.
Original text continues:
There are probably few people in Afghanistan and outside who would disagree with the analysis coming out of the Berlin meeting of four Afghan leaders and four US Congress members. The statement signed after it and presented at a press conference on 9 January (find its full text at the bottom and here and see a picture of it here) calls Afghanistan’s present political system ‘dysfunctional because all the power is centralised’, criticised the Karzai government’s ‘incompetence and corruption’ and expressed the fear that the conduct of talks with the Taleban might lead to a ‘back room deal’ and a ‘sell-out’. Parliament needs to have more real power and political parties a bigger role in parliament, it says, and SNTV needs to be replaced by a better electoral system. Finally, the participants spoke in favour of a ‘national dialogue […] to correct the inherent flaws in the present power structure’.
The remedy proposed by the eight is more controversial: ‘decentralizing the political system’ in Afghanistan and ‘election of [provincial] Governors’. ‘[E]lected Governors and provincial councils should also have authority for such things as creating budgets and generating revenue, overseeing police and healthcare, as well as establishing educational authority, if they so desire.’ Rohrabacher even went as far as saying that ‘the overly centralized government power structure in Afghanistan is contrary to that country’s culture’.
**Federalism has been a long-standing political demand in parts of the Afghan north. Dostum’s Jombesh has been promoting this more openly over the past year or so and it has also become more popular among some other political groups among Tajiks and Hazaras, not least because of what is seen by them as the increasingly Pashtun-centric course set by the Kabul government. At the same time, many Pashtuns, including those who are critical of Karzai, see decentralisation as a euphemism for federalism, and federalism as the first step to separatism and the division of the country.
But as is often the case, it is not so important what was said (and much of it has been said in the past), but rather who has said it, in who’s company and where. The leaders who signed the statement with their full titles, claiming to represent ‘over 60 per cent of the Afghan population’, were:
‘Mr. Ahmed Zia Massoud, Chairman, National Front [Jebha-ye Melli]
General Abdul Rashid Dostum, Leader, National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan [Jombesh]
Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, Leader, People´s Unity Party of Afghanistan [Hezb-e Wahdat-e Mardom]
Mr. Amrullah Saleh, Former Director, Afghan National Security Directorate’
(Note: It is not clear whether Mr Saleh was in Berlin personally or whether he gave his approval for the statement from somewhere else.)All of these men have been involved in the latest round of alliance forging in Afghanistan itself. They are trying to come up with a united, anti-Karzai front and possibly a single candidate for the 2014 presidential election who can challenge the incumbent’s still-to-be-chosen successor and enable him to have better chances than Qanuni in 2004 or Dr Abdullah in 2009.
What makes it even worse for Karzai is that, in 2009, Dostum and Mohaqqeq were still on his side and helped him to secure his majority, with claims that they had provided the Uzbek and large parts of the Hazara votes. Although it is still a long way to go to the 2014 elections and today’s alliances might break, Karzai knows that, without them, his successor will have difficulties winning.
Furthermore, the invitation list for Berlin*** had also included other major ‘Northern’ figures – current Second Vice President Karim Khalili, Dr Abdullah, Yunis Qanuni, Ustad Atta and MP Saleh Seljuqi, labelled a ‘Khan staffer’ (with apparent reference to Ismail Khan). They chose not to attend; after all, Khalili and Ismail Khan are part of the government in Kabul. But it was clearly the intention of Rohrabacher’s group to help to create the broadest possible anti-Karzai alliance.
Although the terrible F word (federalism) was avoided in Berlin, a push for decentralisation was probably never made so prominently – jointly by leaders from the Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara communities. And it was made from abroad. And from Berlin of all places where the German government had just helped the US open a direct channel to the Taleban, circumventing Karzai. It could be expected, including by the organisers, that this would create suspicion in Kabul where the government tends to blame foreigners for all mistakes and now clearly sees another conspiracy to undermine President Karzai and build up a political alternative. The Afghan foreign ministry condemned the meeting as ‘contrary to the spirit of national unity and the principles enshrined in the Constitution of Afghanistan’ and criticised the ‘plain interference’ of foreign countries.****
Karzai must also have raised concerns that a division of the country was being planned when he intervened with the US ambassador, Ryan Crocker, in Kabul. (Karzai reportedly also personally called the German foreign office by phone but the meeting was already over by then. He apparently had learnt of it too late.) Why else should Crocker have issued the following most remarkable four-sentence statement on 10 January titled ‘The United States Supports Afghan Unity’?‘
In response to recent press [sic] reports, the U.S. Embassy reaffirms the long-standing support of the United States for a unified Afghanistan based on the Afghan Constitution. Any assertions to the contrary are entirely without foundation. Reconciliation and the political process in Afghanistan are led by the elected government and the Afghan people. Any statement to the contrary is inaccurate.’
For Karzai, the constellation of players may well recall the situation in early 2008. Then, Obama’s pre-election team had started criticising him heavily for the widespread corruption he was presiding over and created the impression that any incoming administration would drop him in favour of a Pashtun team (Ali Jalali, Ashraf Ghani, Hanif Atmar and/or Gul Agha Sherzai) or Dr Abdullah. The group that met in Berlin was supported by influential people in Washington.
Among the four Congress members present, the Republican Dana Rohrabacher, is in his twelfth term and heads the influential House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight; he is an Afghan old hand since the anti-Soviet jehad. Given the lack of a discernibly unified US strategy on Afghanistan, there is no way Karzai can be sure that what has been suggested in Berlin won’t become official strategy one day, particularly given the possibility of a Republican success in this year’s US presidential elections. Apart from that, it is well-known how political and business interests are often muddled in the US, particularly among US Republicans.
Rohrabacher himself is supported by a team that has openly been favouring the Northern Alliance for decades. Among them is Charlie Santos, another old Afghan hand***** who was present in Berlin but not mentioned on the participants’ lists (while other staffers were).
Rohrabacher himself called Santos a ‘confidant of Afghan Uzbek leader, General Dostum’ ina speech in 2009. In a US Congress hearing in 2003, and a number of interviews and articles, Santos had already advocated ‘the idea of federalism and the powerful role of democratically-elected local and regional governments as a way of creating trust and good will among diverse regions and communities’ in Afghanistan.
The 8 January meeting was also not the first of its kind. Already, on 31 July 2010, Rohrabacher and others met Zia Massud, Mohaqqeq and Dostum’s confidant and former MP, Faizullah Zaki.
The meeting went largely unnoticed at the time, but what did not go unnoticed was a highly controversial article by George W. Bush’s former deputy national security adviser, Robert D. Blackwill, that was published at the same time on the Politico blog. Blackwill suggested a ‘de facto partition’ of Afghanistan to ‘focus on defending the northern and western regions […], including Kabul’ with a ‘longtime residual U.S. military force in Afghanistan of about 40,000 to 50,000 troops’ and to ‘offer the Afghan Taliban an agreement in which neither side seeks to enlarge its territory’. ‘Human rights in the Taliban-controlled areas would also probably be abysmal, including for minorities’ but ‘the sky over Pashtun Afghanistan would be dark with manned and unmanned coalition aircraft — targeting not only terrorists but, as necessary, the new Taliban government in all its dimensions’. He added that ‘Karzai and his associates would almost certainly resist partition [my emphasis] — and might not remain in power.’
Afghanistan observers in the US, whose names cannot be disclosed, have told me that Santos claims to work as an advisor for US CENTCOM where the plan for the New Silk Road project was originally created. This includes regional transport corridors for goods and access to the re-discovered, but still unexploited, mineral wealth of Afghanistan for which the government in Kabul is currently trying to trigger an investment bonanza. These sources mainly see interests in northern Afghanistan’s mineral resources as being behind the Berlin meeting.
Even if the four Congress members’ initiative primarily aims to influence US policy on Afghanistan – for example against a power-sharing deal with the Taleban – or tends to inflate the importance of the factional leaders involved, it represent another attempt to shape Afghanistan’s future from outside the country.
Over the past ten years, though, it should have become obvious that such attempts tend to deepen conflicts in Afghanistan rather than alleviate them. Changes to the constitutional order and the political system, – based on what has worked over the past ten years and what hasn’t and why – as necessary as they are, should be the subject of a genuinely broad (ie not warlord-only) debate among Afghans.
The Americans involved ignore the fact that most of the Afghan leaders participating in Berlin have an extremely chequered past. Many were senior players in the events of the mid-1990s when, after the Soviet withdrawal and the fall of the PDPA/Watan regime, they failed to govern the country in a constructive way and, in the consequence, the country descended into factional warfare. In fact it was Dostum who, in January 1994 in a strange alliance with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Khalili’s former boss, Abdul Ali Mazari, tried to break the increasingly monopolistic power of Jamiat led by Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Massud over Kabul. The surprise military attack comprised probably the worst rocketing of the war for Kabul. It was a particularly bloody chapter in a period characterised by war crimes and human rights violations by all factions and the complete breakdown of the state. It led many Kabulis to later see the Taleban as a force liberating them from warlordism.
In this context, the likely scenario resulting from the kind of decentralisation as proposed in Berlin – with elected governors and far-reaching budgetary and police autonomy – is easy to imagine: Dostum would win provincial governor election in gas-rich Jowzjan, Ismail Khan in Herat, Ustad Atta in Balkh and so forth. The local people may end up in a situation that is not better than now, just different: with officialised ‘ethnic’ fiefdoms, ruled by armed factions, as corrupt as the current centre-run country and financed by mining and ‘service’ companies. This would cement armed warlord rule, not democracy. Instead of one unstable Afghanistan, Afghans would get a handful of small unstable ones.
The comparisons this brings to my mind of where this sort of politicking could lead are of places like Somalia, the two Sudans or post-independence Congo. As in a ‘Somalia scenario’, provinces or regions could drift away from each other and a functionally even weaker Kabul than the current one – which would become as unimportant as Mogadishu in the current Somalia.
This could even lead gradually to a full breakup of the country, even if it had not been intended initially. This might trigger another round of a ‘civil’ (or factional) war, ‘low intensity’ enough for the outside world to ignore, but terrible enough for the Afghans, simply because mineral deposits will be disputed between regions or provinces. (Look at the new South Sudan, for example.) A ‘simple’ north-south split, whether official or ‘just’ de facto, could lead to the same results. If any side in such a scenario is supported and possibly financed from outside, based on interests in minerals, it might even resemble the almost forgotten secessionist Katanga episode of 1960 which was only the beginning of a serious of wars still continuing. In any case, the – let’s call it – Rohrabacher/NA alliance is playing with fire.
Therefore, decentralisation should not be discussed at half-secret meetings abroad. This just creates further mistrust and deepens the already growing ethnic rifts in the country. It is as exclusive as hand-picked jirgas are. Instead, any discussion about possible changes to the country’s political system should be organised in Afghanistan, as a public process where Afghan local communities, intellectuals and others have the same say as political leaders. Foreign politicians are entitled to their own opinions but should be extra careful when expressing them and must avoid re-drawing borders on the maps hanging in their offices, after all that already has gone wrong in Afghanistan.
Annex:
Rep. Rohrabacher Leads Bipartisan Delegation’s Afghanistan Strategy Session With National Front Leaders in Berlin
Calls Any Taliban Inclusion in Coalition Government A “Betrayal”
Berlin, Germany, Jan 9 – Today, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), led a bipartisan Congressional delegation strategy session with leaders of Afghanistan’s newly formed National Front, to discuss alternatives to Hamid Karazi’s [sic] consideration of including the Taliban in Afghanistan’s coalition government. Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Steve King (R-IA), Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) and several leaders of Afghanistan’s National Front joined Rep. Rohrabacher in Berlin.
“The Afghans and Members of Congress meeting in Berlin today have concluded that there is a serious concern the blood and treasure invested in Afghanistan over this last decade may well have been in vain,” said Rohrabacher. “The overly centralized government power structure in Afghanistan is contrary to that country’s culture and has inhibited progress toward building a stable and democratic society there.
“The incompetence and corruption of Karzai’s government has now brought serious consideration to accepting the Taliban as part of the coalition government, this would be a betrayal of those Americans who shed their blood in the last decade, as well as, a sellout of the brave Afghans in the North Alliance who cast their lot with us after 9/11 in order to defeat the Taliban dictatorship. All participants in this meeting agreed that if the Taliban wants to participate in running for democratic office, they should be permitted to do so, but they should not be included in a back room deal among power brokers so that they would hold some kind of authority and power in an upcoming Afghan government.”
Upon conclusion of the briefing, both groups issued the following joint policy statement:
“We call for a national dialogue on a revised Constitution to correct the inherent flaws in the present power structure by decentralizing the political system, making it more compatible with the diverse political, social and cultural nature of Afghanistan. The Afghan people deserve and need a parliamentary form of democracy instead of a personality-centered Presidential system.
“We firmly believe that any negotiation with the Taliban can only be acceptable, and therefore effective, if all parties to the conflict are involved in the process. The present form of discussions with the Taliban is flawed, as it excludes anti-Taliban Afghans. It must be recalled that the Taliban extremists and their Al-Qaeda supporters were defeated by Afghans resisting extremism with minimal human embedded support from the United States and International community. The present negotiations with the Taliban fail to take into account the risks, sacrifices and legitimate interests of the Afghans who ended the brutal oppression of all Afghans.
“In order to speed the withdrawal of international forces, the participants believe it is essential to strengthen regional and national institutions that are inclusive and represent the concerns of all the communities of Afghanistan.
“The participants favor a change in the Electoral System from a Single Non Transferable Vote System to a nationally accepted variant of the Proportional Representation system with equal opportunities for both independent candidates, the political parties, or tribal representatives. We also support the election of Governors and empowerment of provincial councils. Such elected Governors and provincial councils should also have authority for such things as creating budgets and generating revenue, overseeing police and healthcare, as well as establishing educational authority, if they so desire.”
Mr. Ahmed Zia Massoud, Chairman, National Front
General Abdul Rashid Dostum, Leader, National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan
Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, Leader, People´s Unity Party of Afghanistan
Mr. Amrullah Saleh, Former Director, Afghan National Security Directorate
Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-California)
Representative Loretta Sanchez (D-California)
Represenative [sic] Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
Representative Steve King (R-Iowa)
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight.”
* Not everybody might remember: Katanga is a once separatist mineral-rich province in the south of what now is the DR Congo and what once had been the Belgian Congo, then Congo-Leopoldville, then Congo-Kinshasa, then Zaire. When the country became independent in 1960 and an anti-colonialist leader, Patrice Lumumba, became head of the government, the former colonial power and mining companies organised a separatist rebellion in Katanga. During a military coup Lumumba was captured, handed over to the separatists and murdered by them.
In 1965, General Joseph-Désiré Mobutu (later Mobutu Sese Seko) emerged as the country’s president and created what became known as one of the world’s most notorious kleptocracies where billions of aid money were channelled into private bank accounts of the dictator abroad. After he was toppled in 1997, the new government started to recover the money.
** It also transpired that Rohrabacher stated in Berlin that Afghans do not ‘deserve’ statehood and referred to the former Northern Alliance groups as the only US allies in Afghanistan. Another Berlin demand – for a ‘national dialogue on a revised Constitution’ (my emphasis) – even opens up a weak flank to the Taleban who reportedly demanded the same (without being specific on what points exactly) when meeting US representatives when the opening of the Qatar office was discussed.
*** It can be found here but the website is not one hosted by the meeting’s organiser, the Aspen Institute Germany. It seems to be authentic, however, because the same list has been sent by Aspen to media in Berlin.
**** Muhaqqeq, on Rah-e Farda TV (14 January, as monitored by AAN Kabul) countered and said there are ‘some fascist around the palace’, hinting at the government’s intention to talk with the Taleban: ‘We are from this people, we are their representative, we stand to defend this land, we suffered due tot he war against the Taleban, we are the survivors of the Yakaolang, Bamian and Mazar massacres’. He also talks about the Berlin conference on a Youtube video.
Other Afghan reactions to the meeting can be found here, here and here.
The Taleban also reacted to the Berlin meeting with two articles in their web site: ‘Afghanistan is undividable’ and ‘Old Partition plan and new players’. Here are the links to the Pashtu and the English versions.
***** He was ‘UN Political Advisor on Afghanistan; Deputy and Senior Political Advisor, United Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan (1987-1995); Vice President, Centgas Consortium (1996 to1999); Senior Vice President, Delta Oil Company’, as it is summarised on the website of another company (established in 2009) of which he is (or has been) part of the board of directors.
Centgas was a consortium of Saudi Delta Oil and UNOCAL (now merged with Chevron) that tried to build a pipeline from Central Asia’s gas and oil fields through Afghanistan to Indian Ocean ports in the mid-1990s (in competition with another consortium including the Argentinian Bridas).
