Andhra politics

DEBKAfile Exclusive Military Report

January 24, 2005, 1:34 PM (GMT+02:00)

Damascus to get Russian SA-18 - effective against low-flying craft.

Russian president Vladimir Putin and Syrian president Bashar Assad, who arrived in Moscow Monday, January 24, will sign a $70 million deal for the sale of 20 SA-18 Igla-S batteries mounted on Armored Personnel Carriers. One of the most effective missiles against low-flying aircraft on the market, the SA-18 is manufactured at the Russian KBM factory near Moscow.

The sale culminates intense quiet exchanges conducted by the US Pentagon and State Department with the Kremlin and Russian defense ministry to prevent the sale to Damascus of the shoulder-launched version of the SA-18 for fear it falling into the hands of Iraqi guerrillas and Hizballah terrorists.

Washington accepted the APC-mounted compromise despite Israel’s complaints. Although 20 batteries do not present a major headache for the Israeli air force, their mobility makes them difficult to target and limits the maneuverability of Israeli planes in Syrian airspace as a deterrent to Damascus war or terror initiatives. The Igla-S is also effective against small targets like reconnaissance drones, helicopters and cruise missiles. Missile experts report that when fired against fighter craft an Igla-S has the effectiveness of two missiles fired in a single round – or five missiles when launched against a cruise missile.

This is Syria’s second important arms purchase in recent months. DEBKAfile’s military sources were first report its acquisition in East Europe of Kornet AT-14 anti-tank missiles. This purchase provoked a warning from Washington that if this weapon should turn up in Iraq or Lebanon, America will be free to take military action.

DEBKAfile’s military sources now reveal that the Syrian missile sale is integral to the Kremlin’s new, broad strategic initiative that encompasses secret military assistance to Tehran as well as its overt deals with Damascus. Moscow’s objective is partly to secure its investment in Iran’s nuclear center at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf against the fate of the Saddam Hussein’s French-built Tamuz nuclear center which the Israeli air force bombed out existence 24 years ago.

In the second week of January, Russian defense minister Sergey Ivanov spent five days in Washington setting up the February 24 summit meeting between Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in the Slovak capital of Bratislava.

That same week, DEBKA-Net-Weekly 189 revealed that Russian experts from the Raduga OKB engineering group in Dubna near Moscow had just completed the installation of two advanced radar systems around the Bushehr nuclear reactor on the Persian Gulf.

These improved mobile 36D6 systems, Western codenamed Tin Shield, were custom-made to upgrade the air defense radar protecting Iran’s key nuclear facilities from American or Israeli aerial, missile or cruise missile attack.

If that was all, it might have passed without too great a hullabaloo.

However, the fat hit the fire when the Russians were discovered to be building the same system at Iran’s uranium enrichment plants for military purposes in Isfahan in central Iran. It was taken to mean that Moscow has undertaken to secure all of Iran’s nuclear industry from top to bottom – from the installation of sophisticated equipment to military planning and operational cooperation - against American or Israeli attack. Moscow has thus placed a serious impediment in the path of any American and Israel military action to curb Iran’s nuclear armament. This Russian-Iranian cooperation looks like the harbinger of geo-strategic understandings in other places like Afghanistan, India, Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

Already, the Russian military umbrella over Iran is emitting diplomatic signals.

And that is not all.

On January 12, the day Russian radar was finally installed at Bushehr and Isfahan, the Kremlin leaked word of a large-scale arms deal afoot with Syria for the delivery of advanced SS-26 road-mobile Iskander-E surface missiles - successor to the Scud, whose 480-kilo multiple warhead can dodge air defense radar systems and electronic jamming - as well as surface-to-air SA-10 (“Grumble”) and SA-18 (“Grouse”) shoulder-launched missiles.

The first can engage several targets at varying altitudes simultaneously including raiding aircraft and cruise or tactical missiles. The SA-18 is an improved version of the Strela with a 2-kilo high-explosive warhead fitted with a contact and grazing fuse, aerodynamic improvements, extended effective range and greater speed. The SA-18 has a maximum range of 5.2 km and maximum altitude of 3.5 km.

Sale of this missile package was not expected to go through in its entirety - certainly not the Iskander. The shoulder-launched version of the SA-18 was deemed too flagrant a provocation for Washington to tolerate in view of its applications for Iraqi insurgents and Hizballah terrorists. The leak was therefore intended as a partial red herring to camouflage Moscow’s real plans.

What really worries Washington and Jerusalem is the possibility of Assad and Putin putting their heads together on the same 36D6 radar system Moscow has supplied Iran.

Our military sources describe the Tin Shield 36D6 as a mobile radar system designed to detect air targets and perform friend-or-foe identification. It is highly effective in detecting low, medium and high altitude targets moving at almost any speed, including winged missiles and American or Israeli cruise missiles. It is capable of providing the target and bearing of active jamming, as well as integrated computer-aided systems of control and guidance of anti-aircraft missile complexes.

Tin Shield can operate independently as an observation and air detection post, as part of computer-aided control systems or as an element in an anti-air guided missile complex, where it carries out reconnaissance and targeting.

If Syria gets this sophisticated system, a Russian-coordinated Iranian-Syrian-Lebanese radar barrier will rise with three serious consequences that go beyond the balance of strength in the Middle East:

1. The 36D6 radar system deployment, if acquired by Syria as well Iran, will confine US aerial operations in Iraq to a narrow corridor hemmed in by sophisticated Russian radar and reconnaissance systems.

2. Its deployment at nuclear sites in northern Iran near the Afghan border will obstruct any American air operation mounted from the north against Iran from Afghan bases, while the Russian radar system’s presence in Syria will hinder an American or Israeli strike against Iran from the west.

3. Moscow’s military backing for Iran and Syria is tantamount to sympathy for their diplomatic postures and extends to their sponsorship of Hizballah and Palestinian terrorist organizations. First overt indications of Moscow’s new direction surfaced in an official Russian foreign ministry denunciation last week, the first since the 1990s, of the American threat of new sanctions against Syria for sponsoring “freedom fighters” – Syria’s term for Palestinian terrorist organizations like Hamas and the Jihad Islami.

How far the Kremlin intends to take its new policy thrust in the Middle East will become clearer after the Assad-Putin talks in Moscow this week and the Putin-Bush Bratislava summit in a month.

From DEBKA-Net-Weekly 190 Updated by DEBKAfile

January 27, 2005, 11:44 AM (GMT+02:00)

Islamic law - but no theocracy

Wednesday was the single most deadly day for US forces in Iraq ; 36 servicemen died – 31 in a helicopter crash and five in anti-insurgent operations at trouble spots. At least 25 Iraqis were also killed in insurgent attacks on party offices and police centers. In counter-strikes, US troops uncovered a round dozen bomb cars In the northern city of Mosul rigged ready for detonation on election-day in three days time. US troops also raided Hit in Anbar Province, where many followers of al Qaeda’s Iraq commander, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, went to ground in flight from Fallujah.

Despite the Iraqi Sunni boycott, al-Zarqawi’s imprecations against the general election, and the unprecedented level of bloodletting, an certain number of the 40,000 polling stations across the country will almost certainly open on time Sunday, January 30.

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That was one of the starting points on which Gregory Hooker, chief analyst of CENTCOM, the American command running the war in Iraq, presupposed his detailed forecast of election results.

This forecast, commissioned by CENTOM commander General John Abizaid, was first revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 190 on January 21.

The second premise was that orderly vote-counting would likewise take place notwithstanding threats of sabotage.

The Hooker forecast is essentially a simulation exercise based on US and Iraqi intelligence data gathered in the last six months, together with estimates of opinion openly canvassed in towns up and down the country.

The level of participation and the results of this pivotal election will bear strongly on the Bush administration’s second term Iraq policy, the tasks facing US armed forces, the chances of the elected national assembly taking up its responsibilities, including the drafting of a new national constitution, and the prospects of an elected government exercising authority.

• Altogether 111 political entities – parties, individuals or coalitions – are running for the 275 National Assembly seats.

• A total of 7,785 candidates are registered on the national ballot

• Eligible voters in Iraq: 14.27 million

• Eligible voters outside Iraq: 1.2 – 2 million (only one-quarter of whom registered).

• More than 130 lists were submitted by the December 15, 2004 deadline for registration. Nine were multi-party coalition blocs while 102 were lists presented by single Iraqi parties.

• There are two major political blocs – Shiite and Kurdish:

The Shiite Unified Iraqi Alliance list submitted 228 candidates representing 16 Iraqi political groups including the dominant Shiite factions. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq – SCIRI, heads this list, followed by Ibrahim Al-Jafari, head of the al-Dawa Party.

• The two Kurdish parties headed by Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani decided to run together on the Kurdish list.

• Both the Iraqi interim prime minister Iyad Allawi and Iraqi president Ghazi al-Yawar submitted their own lists of candidates. Allawi’s party, the Iraqi National Accord – INC, submitted a 240-candidate coalition, while al-Yawar leads an 80-member slate representing the Iraqi Grouping.

Projected Results

For elections held now, Hooker projects the following figures:

The Shiite Unified Iraqi Alliance list – 43.8% = 120 national assembly seats.

The Kurdish list – a surprising 36.4% (more than twice their 16-18% proportion of the general population) = 100 seats.

The Iraqi National Accord – 8.1% = 22 seats. (A formula is being actively sought to retain him as premier even if his showing is low.)

The Iraqi Communist party (the best organized) – 1.6% = 5 seats.

All the Assyrian, Turkomen and Yazdi minorities together – 4 seats.

All the rest – 5 seats.

The first conclusion reached by our analysts is that, while the leading Shiite UIA bloc can expect to be the big winner of the election, the real victor will be the Shiite cleric who assembled and founded the alliance, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and his inner circle. The slate he drew up of candidates to the legislature reflects his political aspirations and cunning: of the 120 registered, the first 60 are independents with no parties behind them and will therefore be totally dependent on Sistani himself for support.

Al-Hakim’s SCIRI will get no more than 14 assembly seats, while al-Jafari’s al Dawa must be content with 12. The former rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr’s following will match al Dawa with 12 places in the legislature

The slate he assembled also pushes pro-Tehran and Iran’s chosen men down to the unrealistic bottom.

Sistani wants to see non-clerical ministers in the post-election government but will insist on incorporating Islamic law as the basis of the national constitution.

The Kurds owe their projected big win to three prime causes:

1. The union of the two principal lists, which will help them carry districts in which each faction is fragmentary, like Iraq’s second largest town of Mosul and certain quarters of Baghdad.

2. Major concessions by Sistani in Kirkuk, where he endorsed the transfer of tens of thousands of Kurdish voters into the city. Quietly underway at this moment is the largest demographic transformation in Iraq since the war began, an abrupt reversal of the population displacement conducted by Saddam Hussein. Sunni families are being pushed out of Kirkuk to the Sunni Triangle and replaced by incoming Kurds. Turkomen, Assyrians and Yazdis gnash their teeth but have not the power to interfere in the Kurdish takeover of the mixed city.

3. Another key Sistani concession was his consent to local elections taking place in Kurdish regions for a Kurdish national assembly at the same time as the general election. In return, the Kurdish leaders have granted Sistani a powerful tool of government, a promise to join his Unified Iraqi Bloc in a coalition administration.

The Shiite cleric has little to fear from this alliance. He knows the Kurds are only interested in expanding their own self-government and will therefore not muscle in on the central administration with power-sharing demands. Their backing, however, provides insurance for stable Shiite-dominated government in the long term.

The Sunni Muslim minority can hardly be expected to sit still as the Shiites and Kurds split up the post-war spoils of power.

Indira Gandhi’s assassination prompted genocide. Two decades on justice

still hasn’t been done

By Syed Haider Abbas Rizvi

“Fifteen years old. Round chubby face. Aching black eyes. She stumbled

out of the first rescue bus. The torment she had endured for 36 hours

surged out when she saw us, ‘Meri izzat loot li’ (they raped me), she

cried out, she pulled away the loose crumpled kurta from her shoulders to

reveal a gash from her left collarbone to right breast, covered with

dried blood, ‘ Dekho, dekho kya kiya unhone mere saath ‘ (see, see what

they did to me?)”. So wrote Sheela Barse after witnessing the plight of

Sikh victims of the 1984 Delhi massacre. Within thirty six hours of Oct

31, 1984, when India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead, 3000

Sikhs were killed. There was also widespread rape, arson and looting

during the proverbial first genocide of independent India.

“Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated by the forces of Sikh extremism,” writes

Shashi Tharoor, Indian representative at UN High Commission for

Refugees in the book, India from Midnight to Millennium . He writes further,

“.forces she had herself primed. In 1977 the Congress party, had been

ousted in Punjab by the Sikh Akali Dal Party, an ally of Janta Party; Mrs

Gandhi typically decided to undermine them by opponents more Sikh than

Akalis. So she encouraged (and reportedly even financed) the extremist

fundamentalism of Sikh preacher, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

Bhindranwale soon tired of assassinating clean-shaven Sikhs for their

apostasy and instead took up the cause of independent Sikh State,

Khalistan. As the murders mounted Mrs Gandhi had little choice but to destroy

the monster she had herself spawned and she finally violated a basic

tenet of the Indian state by sending armed troops into a place of

worship, the historic Golden Temple in Amritsar to flush out the terrorists

holed up there. Bhindranwale and his immediate cohorts of gunmen were

killed in operation Bluestar, but so were a member of unarmed civilians

trapped in what was after all, the Sikhs most important place of worship;

great damage, not all of it repairable, was done to the temple itself,

by the time she acted, Mrs Gandhi probably had no choice.”

The assault on the Golden Temple deeply alienated many Sikhs whose

patriotism had been unquestionable. The Gandhi family’s staunchest ally in

the independent press, the Sikh editor Kushwant Singh, returned his

national honours to the government, and a battalion of Sikhs, the backbone

of the army, mutinied. Mrs Gandhi could not understand the extent to

which so many Sikhs saw Bluestar as a betrayal. She refused to draw the

conclusions her security advisers did, and to her credit, and

misfortune, turned down their recommendations to remove Sikhs from her personal

guards. Two of them, sworn to protect her with their lives, turned their

guns on her.

Indira Gandhi was shot at 9.15 am on Oct 31, 1984. As the news spread

throughout the day on radio and newspapers, crowds gathered outside All

India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) waiting for news. Sikhs,

many of whom were Congress supporters were “as shocked as anyone else”

(Rao, Report to the Nation ). They had little idea of the turmoil to

come.

Meanwhile on the same day, two truckloads of men from nearby villages

assembled at the site. According to Madhu Kishwar, they were armed with

iron rods and lathis and seemed to be organised. Soon the gathering,

including a Congress member who was later implicated for organising riots

in the trans-Yamuna area, was brought to boiling point through speeches

and sloganeering. ” Khun Ka Badla, Khun Se Lenge” (blood for blood) was

one of the cries heard. The mob began to attack Sikhs, pulling them out

of vehicles, beating them and setting their turbans on fire. The crowds

began to disperse in various directions, stoning Sikh vehicles as they

went and starting to loot or burn Sikh shops. Even the motorcade of

India’s President, Giani Zial Singh, who was a Sikh, was stoned by an

angry mob while he was on his way to AIIMS.

At 5:30pm, “Rajiv Gandhi (son of Indira Gandhi) came out. after having

seen his mother’s body,” followed by the Minister of State for

Information and Broadcasting, HKL Bhagat. The latter, who has since been

accused by some of playing a part in organising the riots, addressed the

crowds, “what is the point of assembling here?” Virginia Van Dyke wrote, in

Riots and Pogroms , “This reported statement could obviously have

alternate meanings, suggesting either that the crowd had no purpose in

assembling there or that it might have a more useful purpose elsewhere.”

On Nov 1, simultaneous riots broke all over Delhi. Mobs were armed with

iron rods, bamboo sticks and litres of kerosene oil mixed with

phosphorous. The rioters were reportedly directed by officials carryings voter

lists, ration cards and school registers, who pointed out Sikh shops

and houses or marked them in some fashion.

Tirlokipuri saw some of the worst atrocities. Around 40-50 Sikh women

were kidnapped and taken to a nearby village. Sikh men pleaded with the

police to rescue the girls but there were inadequate forces and the day

passed. A Sub-Inspector pursued the case, but his senior officers

declined to provide him with vehicles, for fear that they would be burnt!

Indeed the police seemed to be content to look the other way as the riots

continued, and were even accused of being complicit in the violence.

The police were reported to have said to the mob, “We gave you 36

hours. Had we given the Sikhs that much time they would have killed every

Hindu.”

Perpetrators of the crimes were rewarded, according to Who are the

guilty? a report published in the journals Peoples Union for Democratic

Rights (PUDR) and Peoples Union for Civil Liberties ( PUCL

http://www.pucl.org). The report openly identifies a current Congress

MP, and a former Congress Trade Union leader, stating that they paid men

involved with Rs 100 and a bottle of liquor.

The communal orgy of violence continued into November 2. Report of the

Citizens Commission gives details regarding the stopping of trains by

crowds in order to murder Sikh passengers. The army was finally called

into the area, only to attest to the countless human bodies squandered

on streets, burnt remains of taxis and trucks with the corpses of their

drivers at their wheels. Nov 3 showed some signs of the violence

abating, particularly in the more central areas. By Nov 4, although violence

continued in some areas, a return to normality was evident.

Rajiv Gandhi, who was sworn in as Prime Minister at 6:50pm on Oct 31,

evaded the question of initiating any inquiry into the massacre. He

callously declared that any inquiry further damage Sikhs, and that the

issues were already dead. However, the government ultimately designated the

Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission on April 26, 1985. The inquiry was

roundly criticized and it was accused of being a cover up exercise.

Manmohan Singh, as leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha, extended his

support to the proposal of a fresh inquiry into the Delhi massacre. The

Justice Nanavati Commission was finally installed. This inquiry is still

under way to determine the veracity of 200 First Information Reports

and investigate 3000 Sikh murders. Out of a total of 300 cases in court,

200 are for murder and there have been just nine murder convictions in

19 years.

The wounds of the 1984 massacre are still ripe and many draw parallels

between that episode and the 2002 riots in Gujrat. Many have accused

the governments (Congress in 1984, BJP in 2002) of at the very least not

doing their utmost to protect minorities during these riots. As those

investigating 1984’s events continue to prevaricate after two decades,

there seems little hope that justice will ultimately be done.

-Courtesy : The Friday Times

Islamic party criticises Mush for telephoning Rice

PTI[ FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 2005 09:40:33 PM ]

Sign into earnIndiatimes points

ISLAMABAD: Taking strong exception to President Pervez Musharraf calling new US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over phone to congratulate her, Pakistan’s main opposition party on Friday said he has not only violated international protocol but also disgraced the country.

“Our rulers have assumed such proportion of flatterers that they do not care for the country’s dignity,” deputy chief of hardline Jamaat-e-Islami Senator Khurshid Ahmed said, reacting to Musharraf’s telephone conversation with Rice.

By calling the Secretary of state, he said, “President Musharraf has also violated international standard of protocol.”

“The foreign minister should have called his American counterpart instead of President Musharraf,” the Jamaat leader said.

“It is very surprising that the President receives any low-level American guests when he or she visits Pakistan,” he said.

During the telephone conversation last night, Musharraf congratulated Rice on her appointment and discussed Pakistan-US relations as well as regional and international issues of mutual interest, media reports said.

—————————-

BELOW IS FROM PAKISTANI URDU PRESS

——————————

Jasarat, November 18, 2004

Rice—a ‘snake’ that will keep on biting the Muslims

Shahnawaz Farooqi

‘Condy Rice is a ‘snake’ that believes in

engulfing the enemy. Her name resembles

with a specie of snakes i.e. anaconda. She

thinks that the US is such a big power that it

should stop intimidating the smaller power

and simply erase them from the map of the

earth. She is the mother of the doctrine of

aggression that the US is currently following.

Following this doctrine, the US has eaten up

Afghanistan and Iraq like an anaconda—

Rice’s brother.’

‘Colin Powell was also a ‘snake’. His poison

was touching its last limits that is why he

was discarded and Rice was brought on

board. Rice is suffering from inferiority

complex. She is a black and she wants to

prove her a ‘white’ through her hard work.

That hard work is in the form of enmity with

the Muslims. She is far ahead than Bush in

enmity with Islam.’

‘Rice is a natural extremist. She is

unmarried and that is one evidence of her

extremism. Some people think that Bush will

learn from his mistakes during his second

term. But he has domesticated a ‘snake’ in

the form of Rice that will keep on biting the

Muslims.’

Al Zawahiri in Pakistan?

According to daily Insaf, Aiman al Zawahiri the mastermind of Al Qaeda and number two after Osama bin Laden could be located in Pakistan, either in Sindh or Balochistan in the protection of some sardar. Other members of Al Qaeda who have made their way into Pakistan have come down from North Waziristan and have been hiding in Dera Ghazi Khan and Dera Ismail Khan. These members of Al Qaeda are as follows: Ali bin Muhammad Askar (Sudan), Matlab al Sabah (Saudi) Basir Tankati (Egypt), Muhammad Aziz (Kuwait), Muhammad Saleh bin Musa (Yemen), Muhammad Aniq al Basit (Egypt), Abu Talha (Egypt), Abdul Sabhan Asiri (Saudi), Abdul Ali bin Hisham (Saudi), Abu Salman Musa (Syria), Abdur Rehman Didan (Yemen), Muhammad Abdul Basit (Egypt), and Ahmad Abdul Alim Jafari (Egypt). The paper quoted Arab sources.

Altaf Hussain and MMA

According to daily Insaf MQM chief Altaf Hussain spoke on the phone to an audience at the Lahore Press Club and said he was not ghaddar (traitor) and that if the MMA wanted to agitate against Musharraf it should first leave the government in Balochistan and the NWFP. He kept pronouncing MMA as mamma (breast). Daily Nawa-e-Waqt reported Altaf Hussain as saying that 60 percent of the government was military. He said generals became feudal landlords after retirement. He said in 1965 India did not attack but Pak army did and was defeated. At Kargil it suffered another defeat and was too scared to collect its own dead bodies.

Bangladesh hates India

Writing in Khabrain, Kuldip Nayar said that anti-India feeling was high in Bangladesh and it started when founder Sheikh Mujib was still in power. When he talked to him Mujib said that Bangladeshis were grateful but the anti-India feeling was being created by spiteful rumours. In Bangladesh most people thought that rice was being smuggled to Calcutta. Later BNP of Khaleda Zia decided to join up with Jamaat Islami in order to gain street power. Now there is violence in the name of religion and religion is used to make people anti-Hindu and anti-India. One person who has written a book on why the Hindus were running away was now under threat from terrorists who had returned from Afghanistan and were spearheading the BNP’s new policy.

‘We want to destroy Aga Khan Foundation’

According to Nawa-e-Waqt the men who destroyed the Aga Khan Service Centre in Chitral were caught. They turned out to be members of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (earlier reported as members of Harkatul Mujahideen whose leader Fazlur Rehman Khaleel had just been released from prison). The two arrested terrorists said they wanted to end the work of Aga Khan Foundation in Chitral. Photos of Osama bin Laden and Afghan Jihad were found in their custody.

Where charity ends up

Daily Jang reported that charity funds disbursed for calamity stricken areas usually went into the wrong pockets. After the 1973 floods, Swedish matches, cooking oil and blankets were sold in the market. Similarly calamity funds after floods in Mekran were disbursed to local government supporters and voters of the government in Mekran. After the tsunami, charity funds going to the area will see new luxury houses coming up in countries from Indonesia to Somalia.

No friendship with Hindus and Jews

Former teacher of journalism Mr AR Khalid stated in Nawa-e-Waqt that in Islam the only enlightenment and roshan khayali was the way Allah had shown under which there was no good in befriending Jews and Hindus. No other madadgar (helper) and raziq (giver of food) was to be accepted save Allah. And the world would have to be considered a temporary abode.

PIA completely bans uplift of only Sindhi newspapers due to so-called “economy”; purchase of Urdu & English papers continue

KARACHI: [Sindh Today Report] PIA - the national airlines of Pakistan which was purchasing Sindhi newspapers for uplift for more than last 35 years, has discontinued only Sindhi newspapers in the name of so-called “economy measures” from Jan 15, 2005

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1217945,001300430001.htm

Indo-Asian News Service

Jammu, January 28, 2005|13:38 IST

At least half a dozen cases of Pakistanis surreptitiously acquiring Indian

citizenship in Jammu and Kashmir have come to light in the border district

of Poonch, officials said in Jammu.

These people entered India via the Wagah border post in Punjab using

Pakistani passports and then travelled to Kashmir, where they obtained fake

Permanent Resident Certificates and purchased land to establish themselves

as permanent residents of the state.

The cases detected so far are all in Mendhar town of Poonch district, the

officials said.

Mendhar is a strategic town close to the Line of Control (LoC) and one of

the major routes used by terrorists sneaking across the ceasefire line from

Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The efforts of the Pakistanis to blend with the local population were

highlighted by a man named Lal Din, who wrote a letter to the external

affairs ministry. Subsequent inquiries by revenue officials in Kashmir

unearthed the truth.

Lal Din acted after Zulfikar, son of Faker Din, who had crossed over to

India and settled in Salwa village of Poonch, entered the fray in the

parliamentary elections last year.

Acting on the basis of a probe by the field staff of the sub- divisional

magistrate of Mendhar and the deputy commissioner of Poonch, Jammu’s

Divisional Commissioner BR Sharma ordered the cancellation of the Permanent

Resident Certificates of Zulfikar and his family members in December.

Officials now believe there might be more such cases that are not known to

the local administration.

Constitutional challenges of federalism

Let us transform our institutions of governance before the Republic’s 60th anniversary

JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN

Posted online: Friday, January 28, 2005 at 0000 hours IST

We have completed 55 years as a republic and this is a good time to introspect. With great expectation, the members of the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution on November 26, 1949, and the new republic came into existence on January 26, 1950. It was an extraordinary occasion.

The United States was the first republic in the modern world. With the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the American colonies rejected British rule. In the ensuing War of Independence, the American forces won. But the task of uniting the 13 independent states remained unfinished. In 1787, the Continental Congress met to deliberate on the future Constitution. Two viewpoints prevailed. The Republicans favoured popular sovereignty and supremacy of the states. The Federalists favoured a strong federal government. A compromise was made and the Constitution approved in 1789. The American Constitution was the first written one.

The early years of the republic were turbulent. For nearly a decade, the Republican group, led by Jefferson and Madison, and the Federalist faction, led by Hamilton and Adams, were at loggerheads, and the issue of slavery was deliberately kept aside to win the support of the southern states.

Finally, the Republicans vanquished the Federalists in the 1800 elections in which Jefferson was elected President. The Republicans embraced the Federalist ideology in part, even as the states’ rights were protected. The issue of slavery was not resolved until the civil war in the 1860s. But the promise of true liberty was denied to women and Blacks for many more decades. Women obtained the right to vote in the 1920s. While Black males got the right to vote after the civil war, it became real for the Afro-Americans in the south only in the 1960s, after the civil rights movement. The promise took over 180 years to be fulfilled.

The Indian Constitution is radical and revolutionary in comparison. At one stroke, all citizens got the right to vote. In a display of idealism, and faith in our people, our freedom fighters embarked on universal adult franchise, and embraced the republican principle. The new Constitution was not approved by the Governor General, the notional head of state. By deliberate decision, it was signed by the members of the Constituent Assembly. As the preamble declares, “We, the People,” have given unto ourselves the Constitution.

The Constituent Assembly, and the drafting committee under Babasaheb Ambedkar’s visionary chairmanship, gave a remarkable document of self-governance. And the indomitable Sardar Patel integrated over 500 princely states into the Indian Union. With the exception of Hyderabad, not a bullet was fired. Given our history, there was no serious debate about the rights of states. The Congress had visualised a decentralised, state-centred republic. But in the partition’s aftermath, fears of fragmentation compelled the creation of a strong Union in a quasi-federal state.

• The promise of American Declaration of Independence was fulfilled slowly

• The Indian Constitution is radical and revolutionary in comparison

• Our democratic system is resilient and capable of addressing our crisis

Our quasi-federal democracy has evolved over time into a federal system. It took decades of debate and struggle. And it happened through a combination of three factors. Article 356 is almost a dead letter after the Supreme Court verdict in Bommai case. The Union’s discretion to extend patronage through public sector investment has all but disappeared, thanks to liberalisation. And the compulsions of coalition governments made it impossible to ride roughshod over the states.

Moreover, fair fiscal devolution has put our federalism on sound footing. The practice of treating Union tax revenues as a divisible pool and earmarking a share to states has strengthened them. The Union transfers over 42% of all tax resources to states through the Finance Commission, Planning Commission, and centrally sponsored schemes. With recent initiatives in employment, health and education, it is likely that these transfers will touch 50% —a remarkable accomplishment.

However, the Union’s ability to influence events in states has been reduced excessively. It has no automatic jurisdiction over criminal offences that affect public order or national security. Inter-state trade faces several barriers. The Union armed forces could not intervene to eliminate Veerappan, and the menace continued over two decades. States like Bihar are practically in the medieval era, with organised crime as a growing industry. Politics, violence and crime are inextricably intertwined in many states. Leftwing extremism has taken hold of large regions. In these cases, the Union is helpless. It is paradoxical that the Union has greater influence on events in Nepal, Maldives or Sri Lanka!

We must re-examine these challenges and find viable constitutional mechanisms to address them. Or else, growing regional disparities and lawlessness will pose huge dangers to our economy and national security. Much is wrong with our democracy and politics. Even the working of the Constitution needs to be altered in parts. The fact that we have a hundred amendments shows that we adopted the document in excessive detail. We must also recognise that we have a noble and humane Constitution, which has, mostly, worked satisfactorily. And we have a democratic system, which is resilient and capable of addressing our crisis.

We need to recognise that true transformation is possible only through our efforts. Meanwhile, let us celebrate our Constitution and democracy, which give us the sovereignty, space and opportunity to rejuvenate our republic. If we work sensibly, we can transform our institutions of state, politics and governance before celebrating the republic’s 60th anniversary. A great opportunity beckons us.

The writer is the coordinator of Lok Satta movement, and Janadesh, the National Campaign for Political Reforms

PROBE INTO BENNY HINN’S PROGRAMME AT BANGALORE

Sadhu Prof. V. Rangarajan

Bharatamata Gurukula Ashram &

Yogi Ramsuratkumar Indological Research Centre

Sister Nivedita Academy

‘Sri Bharati Mandir’, Srinivasanagar, Krishnarajapuram

Bangalore 560 036, INDIA

(Phone: 091-80-5610935 / 5613716; Cell: 9448275315;

e-mail: sadhurangarajan@vsnl.com)

January 25, 2005

On the eve of the three day “Pray for India” gimmick of the American evangelist, Benny Hinn at Jakkur Air Port, when we sadhus and sannyasins representing the Hindu society marched to Vidhan Soudha to record our protest against the State Government allowing such open deception of the public in the name of religion, Mr. M.P. Prakash, the Revenue Minister of Karnataka, assured us that there would not be any quackery, miracle healing or conversion by the evangelist and that he would only perform a prayer.

However, actually thousands of really physically handicapped, crippled and seriously ill people from various parts of Karnataka and even outside were attracted by the leaflets distributed and publicity made by the organizers assuring miraculous cure by the “messenger of Jesus”. The newspapers and television media who have covered the three day show have exposed the deception of the organizers by deliberately and forcefully preventing the genuinely crippled and deceased persons from coming anywhere near the stage and presenting on the stage some specially trained volunteers posing themselves as people “miraculously cured” by Benny Hinn’s prayer to Jesus.

Heartrending pictures of the deceived and disappointed cripples and diseased people, some of them in wheel chairs, who have come all the way from distant places believing in the propaganda of the organizers and also the credibility given to the show by the Union and State Ministers and high officials in the Government supporting it. The abetment of the cheating by the State Government and the Congress Ministers under the influence of powerful political leadership in the Centre obviously for political purposes and appeasing the minority vote bank has cost very heavily the poor and downtrodden people who are sick and suffering.

The Karnataka High Court and the Supreme Court should take cognizance of this trickery and cheating of innocent and gullible people by the evangelist’s men and the State Government which has supported this show with the participation of the Chief Minister, many other ministers and high officials giving credence to the Missionary in spite of the fact that even many Christian organizations and the media in America and Europe have denounced the deceptive tricks of the evangelist. Justice demands that those poor and innocent people who came from distant places spending a lot of money and got deceived must be compensated.

Though the evangelist has proclaimed that not a single penny out of the money that the he has collected by this show will go out of the country, it has been handed over not to the State Government or Central Government for relief activities, but to a Christian Missionary organization obviously for proselytization work.

Apart from this, among the thousands who have accompanied the evangelist are the armed American bodyguards who were allowed to move about with their guns in the venue of the prayer function. How could the Government allow such a thing, especially when more than ten thousand police men were dumped at the Jakkur Air Port for the protection of the evangelist and his group? Did the Government make any effort to find out how many among those accompanied the evangelist were genuine bodyguards and how many were CIA agents…

Also, is it legal for foreign nationals to go about armed with firearms?

Watch out guys http://www.idrf.ca/

It’s “International Development & Relief Foundation” Seems more like a ‘South Asian’ outfit. And who do they quote on Kashmir? Arindathi Roy herself http://www.idrf.ca/Where-We-Work/Kashmir-Ehiopia.html !! And don’t miss the

reference to ‘Azad’ Kashmir