The real poison is in Arafat's legacy

I never much cared for Yasser Arafat. It wasn’t the scrubby beard or the protruding eyes or the fact that he’d done away with a few of his chums or even the way he once forbad a photographer friend from taking a picture of his bald pate. It was the histrionics, the endless carping about the “peace of the brave” – a phrase he cribbed from de Gaulle – the way in which he would go on about child casualties (“even the little babies…”) and then his endless production in interviews of an old Palestine one pound note with its denomination in Hebrew and Arabic. Surely Jew and Arab could live again together?

  

He made so many concessions to Israel – because he was growing old and wanted to go to “Palestine” before he died – that his political descendants are still paying for them. Arafat had never seen a Jewish colony on occupied land when he accepted the Oslo agreement. He trusted the Americans. He trusted the Israelis. He trusted anyone who appeared to say the right things. And it must have been exhausting to start his career as a super-“terrorist” in Beirut and then be greeted on the White House lawn as a super- “statesman” and then re-created by Israel as a super-“terrorist” again.

In the end, surrounded in his Ramallah headquarters and shelled by Israeli tanks, his few visitors noted how old he looked, how sick. One Scandinavian diplomat who managed to visit him noted how he no longer wore socks, how he had a habit of picking loose skin from his feet during interviews, how the lavatories smelled.

Then came Arafat’s flight to Paris – the Israelis suddenly turning humanitarian on the old boy – and, even before his death, the first murmurings about poison. I didn’t take them very seriously. If he lives, I thought, the gossip will stop; if he dies, he will have been poisoned – as surely as Napoleon was poisoned by the Brits, as assuredly as 9/11 was a CIA plot. So he died. And so, of course, we were told he was poisoned.

Suha Arafat, who had been estranged from him for some years, began talking about his murder and from that moment, murder it became. I happened to hear second-hand from a French military nurse at the Bercy military hospital where Arafat was treated and where he died, that French medical authorities made extensive tests to see if Arafat had been poisoned, before and after his death. They found no trace of poison. And the French had bad relations with Israel at the time.

But as the years stretched out, no conversation, no mention of Arafat’s death could be without the word “poison”. When the accusations started, Israeli spokesmen even talked of the possibility that Arafat’s Palestinian enemies had done away with him. Israel, on the other hand, was proved to have tried to poison a Hamas official in Amman – King Hussein was told of the antidote and Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to release Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as part of the deal. Yassin was later assassinated by the Israelis, bombed in his wheelchair.

Then this month, when the scientists reported on the high level of polonium found in Arafat’s body, it started again. Perhaps it came, one interviewer suggested to me, in the depleted uranium shells the Israelis had fired at Arafat’s headquarters when he was trapped inside. Problem. According to my enquiries at the time, the Israelis had no depleted uranium shells in their ordnance inventory. That doesn’t mean they haven’t used them in other locations. But not at Ramallah.

And what actually is the evidence? He died in 2004, on 11 November, a suitable day since the Great War armistice marked the end of a conflict which gave birth to the Israeli “homeland” in Palestine. The Russian investigation is inconclusive. The French haven’t yet told us their results. The 60 samples taken from the old man’s remains and clothes led the Swiss investigators to say only that the evidence of polonium “moderately” supports the idea that he was poisoned.

I’m sceptical. Edward Said told me that Arafat said to him in 1985 that “if there’s one thing I don’t want to be, it’s to be like Haj Amin. He was always right, and he got nothing and died in exile.” Hunted by the British, Haj Amin, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, went to Berlin during the Second World War in the hope that Hitler would help the Palestinians. It was the greatest blunder any Palestinian has made. Arafat followed that blunder by going to Baghdad and embracing Saddam Hussein after his invasion of Kuwait, believing Saddam would “liberate” the land he called Palestine. Arafat wanted to believe Saddam. Like he wanted to believe the Americans. And the Israelis. And his legacy of vain trust has destroyed any hope of a Palestinian state. That is the poison we should be studying.

Knowing the enemy for 70 years

I’ve long grown weary of the way in which Time magazine, CNN, Fox News and other glories of American journalism like to map out the ethnic/religious/racial front lines of the Middle East. “How to tell a Sunni from a Shiite” was my favourite Time headline. But thanks to reader Lieuke Katz of Albuquerque, New Mexico, I’ve discovered that Time has been at this game for more than 70 years.

Katz has sent me a page from December 1941 which is headlined: “How to tell your friends from the Japs”. The article tries to help Americans to distinguish between Chinese and Japanese, an important task since the Chinese were (then) our allies. “Even an anthropologist, with calipers and plenty of time to measure heads, shoulders, noses, hips, is sometimes stumped,” the reader is told with almost fascist bluntness. So here we go:

“Chinese, not as hairy as Japanese, seldom grow an impressive moustache, Most Chinese avoid horn-rimmed spectacles. Although both have the typical epicanthic fold of the upper eyelid … Japanese eyes are usually set closer together… The Chinese expression is likely to be more placid, kindly, open: the Japanese more positive, dogmatic, arrogant… Japanese are hesitant, nervous in conversation, laugh loudly at the wrong time. Japanese walk stiffly, erect. Chinese, more relaxed, have an easy gait, sometimes shuffle.”

 Courtesy: The Independent

Malala and Nabila: worlds apart

On October 24, 2012 a Predator drone flying over North Waziristan came upon eight-year old Nabila Rehman, her siblings, and their grandmother as they worked in a field beside their village home. Her grandmother, Momina Bibi, was teaching the children how to pick okra as the family prepared for the coming Eid holiday. However on this day the terrible event would occur that would forever alter the course of this family's life. In the sky the children suddenly heard the distinctive buzzing sound emitted by the CIA-operated drones - a familiar sound to those in the rural Pakistani villages which are stalked by them 24 hours a day - followed by two loud clicks. The unmanned aircraft released its deadly payload onto the Rehman family, and in an instant the lives of these children were transformed into a nightmare of pain, confusion and terror. Seven children were wounded, and Nabila's grandmother was killed before her eyes, an act for which no apology, explanation or justification has ever been given.

This past week Nabila, her schoolteacher father, and her 12-year-old brother travelled to Washington DC to tell their story and to seek answers about the events of that day. However, despite overcoming incredible obstacles in order to travel from their remote village to the United States, Nabila and her family were roundly ignored. At the Congressional hearing where they gave testimony, only five out of 430 representatives showed up. In the words of Nabila's father to those few who did attend: "My daughter does not have the face of a terrorist and neither did my mother. It just doesn't make sense to me, why this happened… as a teacher, I wanted to educate Americans and let them know my children have been injured."

The translator broke down in tears while recounting their story, but the government made it a point to snub this family and ignore the tragedy it had caused to them. Nabila, a slight girl of nine with striking hazel eyes, asked a simple question in her testimony: "What did my grandmother do wrong?" There was no one to answer this question, and few who cared to even listen. Symbolic of the utter contempt in which the government holds the people it claims to be liberating, while the Rehmans recounted their plight, Barack Obama was spending the same time meeting with the CEO of weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

Selective Memory

It is useful to contrast the American response to Nabila Rehman with that of Malala Yousafzai, a young girl who was nearly assassinated by the Pakistani Taliban. While Malala was feted by Western media figures, politicians and civic leaders for her heroism, Nabila has become simply another one of the millions of nameless, faceless people who have had their lives destroyed over the past decade of American wars. The reason for this glaring discrepancy is obvious. Since Malala was a victim of the Taliban, she, despite her protestations, was seen as a potential tool of political propaganda to be utilized by war advocates. She could be used as the human face of their effort, a symbol of the purported decency of their cause, the type of little girl on behalf of whom the United States and its allies can say they have been unleashing such incredible bloodshed. Tellingly, many of those who took up her name and image as a symbol of the justness of American military action in the Muslim world did not even care enough to listen to her own words or feelings about the subject.

As described by the Washington Post's Max Fisher:

Western fawning over Malala has become less about her efforts to improve conditions for girls in Pakistan, or certainly about the struggles of millions of girls in Pakistan, and more about our own desire to make ourselves feel warm and fuzzy with a celebrity and an easy message. It's a way of letting ourselves off the hook, convincing ourselves that it's simple matter of good guys vs bad guys, that we're on the right side and that everything is okay.

But where does Nabila fit into this picture? If extrajudicial killings, drone strikes and torture are in fact all part of a just-cause associated with the liberation of the people of Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere, where is the sympathy or even simple recognition for the devastation this war has caused to countless little girls such as her? The answer is clear: The only people to be recognized for their suffering in this conflict are those who fall victim to the enemy. Malala for her struggles was to be made the face of the American war effort -  against her own will if necessary - while innumerable little girls such as Nabila will continue to be terrorized and murdered as part of this war without end. There will be no celebrity appearances or awards ceremonies for Nabila. At her testimony almost no one even bothered to attend.

But if they had attended, they would've heard a nine year old girl asking the questions which millions of other innocent people who have had their lives thrown into chaos over the past decade have been asking: "When I hear that they are going after people who have done wrong to America, then what have I done wrong to them? What did my grandmother do wrong to them? I didn't do anything wrong."

Murtaza Hussain is a Toronto-based writer and analyst focused on issues related to Middle Eastern politics.

Was Jammu massacre planned?

Millions of people were brutally killed by communal mobs under the tutelage of erstwhile Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir in the winter capital in the months of October and November in 1947, but, one of the biggest genocide and ethnic cleansing in the contemporary times hardly finds a mentions in the pages of history.  

Each year, India— ‘the world’s largest democracy’— commemorates, April 1919, Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in which British army’s Brigadier General Reginald EH Dyer fired over crowd for nearly ten minutes and killed hundreds and left thousands injured, but why has been a large scale genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jammu Muslims been pushed under the rugs of oblivion? 

The gory event being systematically erased from the pages of history has made it difficult to trace the bloodbath. Questions about the systematic killings at a mass level and the hidden hands to change Jammu’s demography even after 65 years seek clear answers.

Documents unravel that the events of time in Jammu that changed fate of millions received least reportage. Was the authoritarian Maharaja working under a plan and did he impose a blanket ban on noting down the gory events? Perhaps one would never know the details, but has been chronicled is: Around 500,000 Muslims were killed with military precision in Jammu in the months of October and November. ("Prejudice in Paradise", communalism combat,  Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal, 2005. http://www.indianet.nl/indpk146.html)

Such was the intensity of this carnage in the province that about 123 villages were ‘completely depopulated’.

While the decrease in the number of Muslims in Jammu district alone was over 100,000. Thousands of Gujjars were massacred in local mohallas and the villages within Jammu cantonment area were completely burnt down. Kuthua almost ‘lost’ fifty per cent of its Muslim population.

The Muslims numbered 158,630 and comprised 37 per cent of the total population of 428,719 in the year 1941, and in the year 1961, they numbered only 51,690 and comprised only 10 per cent of the total population of 516,932. 

The Dogra state troops were at the forefront of attacks on Muslims. The state authorities were also issuing arms not only to local volunteer organizations (RSS) but to those in surrounding East Punjab districts such as Gurdaspur.

“The Hindus and Sikhs of Jammu and those who had gone there from outside (referring to RSS from Gurdaspur and surrounding areas) killed Muslims there. Their women have been dishonored. This has not been fully reported in the newspapers. The Maharaja of Kashmir is responsible for what has happened there.” (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, volume 90, page 115 and 298).

The state administration had not only demobilised a large number of Muslim soldiers serving in the state army, but Muslim police officers had also been sent home.

The idea was to create a Hindu majority in the Jammu region. Eighteen per cent fall in Muslim population in the region from Census 1941 to 1961 was noted after Muslims were butchered.  

Names of the places were immediately erased to conform to new ownership. Urdu Bazar became Rajinder Bazar and Islamia School became Hari Singh High School. Almost 95 per cent of left-over properties which should have in the normal course been taken over by the state government were given to looters and rioters (Daily Telegraph of London dated 12 January 1948). These properties continue to be under the illegal occupation of looters and their descendants.

Out of a total of 8 lakhs Muslims who tried to migrate, more than “237,000 were systematically exterminated by all the forces of the Dogra state, headed by the Maharaja in person and aided by Hindus and Sikhs.” (“The Master and the Maharajas: The Sikh Princes and the East Punjab Massacres of 1947,” Ian Copland).

Local media too perpetuated in intensifying the killings and exodus. For example, a Jammu-based Hindu paper boasted that ‘a Dogra can kill at least two hundred Muslims’ which illustrated the communal level to which the media and parties had sunk.

Then emergency administrator, Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah too conceded genocide and ethnic cleansing in his speech two weeks later at Jammu. But he put the blame on victims and said: “Jammu Muslims are to be large extent themselves responsible for what has happened to them, because though in a minority, they had, by their words and deeds, let their tongues in favour of Pakistan.”(The Struggle for Freedom in Kashmir p. 332, P N Bazaz).

However, in Sheikh Abdullah’s autobiography, Atish-e-Chinar (page 312), he writes that the carnage received an impetus after the arrival of Union Home Minster Sardar Patel, Union Defence Minister Baldev Singh along with the Maharaja of Patiala, a person known for his anti-Muslim bias, in Jammu. The trio had met various Hindu organizations and delegations, after which the massacre attained a great momentum. Fanatics, aided and abetted by government forces, started burning down village after village inhabited by Muslims. Women were abducted, raped at will.

Even the daughter of the Chaudhary Ghulam Abbas, the front-runner political figure, was not spared. Many women preferred death than falling prey. “His family suffered in all possible ways during ethnic cleansing of Jammu. Several of his sisters and brother were killed. His family members were specifically targeted because of his proximity to Muslim League. His youngest daughter was recovered from an Indian Army camp after the massacre of Jammu Muslims.” (Sheikh Showkat Hussain, “19 Profiles”). 

GK Reddy, an editor of the Kashmir Times in a statement published in the daily Nawa-i-Waqt wrote: “I saw the armed mob with the complicity of Dogra troops killing the Muslims ruthlessly. The state officials were openly giving out weapons to the mob.”

Ironically, explanations of the violence –both in India and Pakistan – always have portrayed the killing as erratic and spontaneous, many with the aim of ‘blame displacement’. Each country floated the subsequent course of violence as a ‘reaction’ to the ‘action’ and in many cases as ‘self-defence’. But the execution of Jammu Muslims breaks the meta-narrative created around the communal killings during partition. 

Are we wrong about Pakistan?

It was my first evening in Pakistan. My hosts, a Lahore banker and his charming wife, wanted to show me the sights, so they took me to a restaurant on the roof of a town house in the Old City.

My food was delicious, the conversation sparky – and from our vantage point we enjoyed a perfect view of the Badshahi Mosque, which was commissioned by the emperor Aurangzeb in 1671.

It was my first inkling of a problem. I had been dispatched to write a report reflecting the common perception that Pakistan is one of the most backward and savage countries in the world. This attitude has been hard-wired into Western reporting for years and is best summed up by the writing of the iconic journalist Christopher Hitchens. Shortly before he died last December, Hitchens wrote a piece in Vanity Fair that bordered on racism.

Pakistan, he said, was “humourless, paranoid, insecure, eager to take offence and suffering from self-righteousness, self-pity and self-hatred”. In summary, asserted Hitchens, Pakistan was one of the “vilest and most dangerous regions on Earth”.

Since my first night in that Lahore restaurant I have travelled through most of Pakistan, got to know its cities, its remote rural regions and even parts of the lawless north. Of course there is some truth in Hitchens’s brash assertions. 

Since 2006 alone, more than 14,000 Pakistani civilians have been killed in terrorist attacks. The Pakistan political elite is corrupt, self-serving, hypocritical and cowardly – as Pakistanis themselves are well aware. And a cruel intolerance is entering public discourse, as the appalling murder last year of minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti after he spoke out for Christians so graphically proves. Parts of the country have become impassable except at risk of kidnap or attack.

Yet the reality is far more complex. Indeed, the Pakistan that is barely documented in the West – and that I have come to know and love – is a wonderful, warm and fabulously hospitable country. And every writer who (unlike Hitchens), has ventured out of the prism of received opinion and the suffocating five-star hotels, has ended up celebrating rather than denigrating Pakistan.

A paradox is at work. Pakistan regularly experiences unspeakable tragedy. The most recent suicide bombing, in a busy market in northwestern Pakistan, claimed 32 lives and came only a month after another bomb blast killed at least 35 people in the Khyber tribal district on January 10. But suffering can also release something inside the human spirit. During my extensive travels through this country, I have met people of truly amazing moral stature.

Take Seema Aziz, 59, whom I met at another Lahore dinner party, and who refuses to conform to the Western stereotype of the downtrodden Pakistani female. Like so many Pakistanis, she married young: her husband worked as a manager at an ICI chemical plant. When her three children reached school age, she found herself with lots of time on her hands. And then something struck her.

It was the mid-Eighties, a time when Pakistan seemed captivated by Western fashion. All middle-class young people seemed to be playing pop music, drinking Pepsi and wearing jeans. So together with her family, Seema decided to set up a shop selling only locally manufactured fabrics and clothes.

The business, named Bareeze, did well. Then, in 1988, parts of Pakistan were struck by devastating floods, causing widespread damage and loss of life, including in the village where many of the fabrics sold by Bareeze were made. Seema set out to the flood damaged area to help. Upon arrival, she reached an unexpected conclusion. “We saw that the victims would be able to rebuild their homes quite easily but we noticed that there was no school. Without education, we believed that there would be no chance for the villagers, that they would have no future and no hope.”

So Seema set about collecting donations to build a village school. This was the beginning of the Care Foundation, which today educates 155,000 underprivileged children a year in and around Lahore, within 225 schools.

I have visited some of these establishments and they have superb discipline and wonderful teaching – all of them are co-educational. The contrast with the schools provided by the government, with poorly-motivated teachers and lousy equipment, is stark. One mullah did take exception to the mixed education at one of the local schools, claiming it was contrary to Islamic law. Seema responded by announcing that she would close down the school. The following day, she found herself petitioned by hundreds of parents, pleading with her to keep it open. She complied. Already Care has provided opportunities for millions of girls and boys from poor backgrounds, who have reached adulthood as surgeons, teachers and business people.

I got the sense that her project, though already huge, was just in its infancy. Seema told me: “Our systems are now in place so that we can educate up to one million children a year.” With a population of over 170 million, even one million makes a relatively small difference in Pakistan. Nevertheless, the work of Care suggests how easy it would be to transform Pakistan from a relatively backward nation into a south-east Asian powerhouse.

Certainly, it is a country scarred by cynicism and corruption, where rich men do not hesitate to steal from the poor, and where natural events such as earthquakes and floods can bring about limitless human suffering. But the people show a resilience that is utterly humbling in the face of these disasters.

In the wake of the floods of 2009 I travelled deep into the Punjab to the village of Bhangar to gauge the extent of the tragedy. Just a few weeks earlier everything had been washed away by eight-feet deep waters. Walking into this ruined village I saw a well-built man, naked to the waist, stirring a gigantic pot. He told me that his name was Khalifa and that he was preparing a rice dinner for the hundred or more survivors of the floods.

The following morning I came across Khalifa, once again naked to the waist and sweating heavily. Pools of stagnant water lay around. This time he was hard at work with a shovel, hacking out a new path into the village to replace the one that had been washed away.

A little later that morning I went to the cemetery to witness the burial of a baby girl who had died of a gastric complaint during the night. And there was Khalifa at work, this time as a grave digger.

Khalifa was a day labourer who was lucky to earn $2 (£1.26) a day at the best of times. To prejudiced Western commentators, he may have appeared a symbol of poverty, bigotry and oppression. In reality, like the courageous volunteers I met working at an ambulance centre in Karachi last year, a city notorious for its gangland violence, he represents the indomitable spirit of the Pakistani people, even when confronted with a scale of adversity that would overpower most people in the West.

As I’ve discovered, this endurance expresses itself in almost every part of life. Consider the Pakistan cricket team which was humiliated beyond endurance after the News of the World revelations about “spot-fixing” during the England tour of 2010. Yet, with the culprits punished, a new captain, Misbah-ul-Haq has engineered a revival. In January I flew to Dubai to witness his team humiliate England in a three-match series that marked a fairy-tale triumph.

Beyond that there is the sheer beauty of the country. Contrary to popular opinion, much of Pakistan is perfectly safe to visit so long as elementary precautions are taken, and, where necessary, a reliable local guide secured. I have made many friends here, and they live normal, fulfilled family lives. Indeed there is no reason at all why foreigners should not holiday in some of Pakistan’s amazing holiday locations, made all the better by the almost complete absence of Western tourists.

Take Gilgit-Baltistan in the north, where three of the world’s greatest mountain ranges – the Hindu Kush, the Himalayas and the Karakorams — meet. This area, easily accessible by plane from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, is a paradise for climbers, hikers, fishermen and botanists. K2 – the world’s second-highest mountain – is in Gilgit, as are some of the largest glaciers outside the polar regions.

Go to Shandur, 12,000ft above sea level, which every year hosts a grand polo tournament between the Gilgit and Chitral polo teams in a windswept ground flanked by massive mountain ranges. Or travel south to Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, cradle of the Indus Valley civilisation which generated the world’s first urban culture, parallel with Egypt and ancient Sumer, approximately 5,000 years ago.

Of course, some areas of Pakistan are dangerous. A profile of Karachi – Pakistan’s largest city and commercial capital – in Time magazine earlier this year revealed that more than 1,000 people died in 2011 in street battles fought between heavily armed supporters of the city’s main political parties. Karachi is plagued by armed robbery, kidnapping and murder and, in November last year, was ranked 216 out of 221 cities in a personal-safety survey carried out by the financial services firm Mercer.

But isn’t it time we acknowledged our own responsibility for some of this chaos? In recent years, the Nato occupation of Afghanistan has dragged Pakistan towards civil war. Consider this: suicide bombings were unknown in Pakistan before Osama bin Laden’s attack on the Twin Towers in September 2001. Immediately afterwards, President Bush rang President Musharraf and threatened to “bomb Pakistan into the stone age” if Musharraf refused to co-operate in the so-called War on Terror.

The Pakistani leader complied, but at a terrible cost. Effectively the United States president was asking him to condemn his country to civil war by authorising attacks on Pashtun tribes who were sympathetic to the Afghan Taliban. The consequences did not take long, with the first suicide strike just six weeks later, on October 28.

Many write of how dangerous Pakistan has become. More remarkable, by far, is how safe it remains, thanks to the strength and good humour of its people. The image of the average Pakistani citizen as a religious fanatic or a terrorist is simply a libel, the result of ignorance and prejudice.

The prejudice against Pakistan dates back to before 9/11. It is summed up best by the England cricketer Ian Botham’s notorious comment that “Pakistan is the sort of place every man should send his mother-in-law to, for a month, all expenses paid”. Some years after Botham’s outburst, the Daily Mirror had the inspired idea of sending Botham’s mother-in-law Jan Waller to Pakistan – all expenses paid – to see what she made of the country.

Unlike her son-in-law, Mrs Waller had the evidence of her eyes before her: “The country and its people have absolutely blown me away,” said the 68-year-old grandmother.

After a trip round Lahore’s old town she said: “I could not have imagined seeing some of the sights I have seen today. They were indefinable and left me feeling totally humbled and totally privileged.” She concluded: “All I would say is: ‘Mothers-in-law of the world, unite and go to Pakistan. Because you’ll love it’. Honestly!”

Mrs Waller is telling the truth. And if you don’t believe me, please visit and find out for yourself.

Courtesy: The telegraph

Why is Omar silent

The recent report on toppling the Jammu and Kashmir government by army is a big surprise. We have been familiar with coups around the world and in recent history particularly with our neighbor Pakistan. But, the shocking element in this expose is that it has given credence to what Kashmir people most discuss in dinning room conversation. The role of agencies. An attack on army or even a politician is viewed with suspicion and is generally attributed to agencies.   

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah being head of the state has not spoken over the issue yet.  There could be several reasons why Omar who is quick to express especially on Twitter is still to comment. Internally he must have been aware about this issue as it was detected by the police as well. What could be the reason he is silent since the conspiracy was going on since long. Well if we all have observed that whenever any crisis have happened in Kashmir his big rescue team from Delhi arrives in no time. I am not talking about any politician or people from home ministry. I am referring to the news channels from Delhi and its acclaimed anchors and reporters. From 2008 Kashmir has gone from one crisis to another and we hardly see Omar coming out and sharing his views with local press and reporters.

But, he immediately appears on channels based in New Delhi and gives his version of story and how he is dealing with it in a democratic manner. It is his routine and be ready to see him telling his side of the story to a New Delhi based channel soon.

Very rarely we see him giving interviews to local media and not to forget the channels he has banned have badly damaged his image. He is keen to answer questions which are asked by people in India but for his own people for whom he claims to be an elected representative he has no such answers. All he has to offer his people are curfews, restrictions and enquires. During these interviews he comes out as a best bet for India in Kashmir. So what if he has to cage a population for weeks and his enquires never complete. 

His love for New Delhi has made Kashmir suffer. He heads certain things where he cannot even guarantee. His own and his party compulsions have always left Kashmir at the receiving end. 

People of Kashmir demand an answer from Omar over this latest expose of army trying to topple the government.  Let us hope he talks to us this time round!

Text of Mirwaiz's letter to envoys over Kashmir killings

Subject: Regarding the repeated bloodbath on the streets of Kashmir and the need to protect the very basic right, the right to life of the people of Kashmir.

Excellency:

While we have been gagged and forcefully confined to our homes or put behind bars, the repeated acts of invasion on the lives of innocent youth at the hands of Indian Armed forces on the streets of Kashmir, compell me to write to your Excellency and thereby draw your attention towards the pain and agony of the people of Kashmir.

On Saturday September, 7 2013 when a concert of western classical music conducted by composer Mr. Zubin Mehta organized by the Embassy of Germany in India and assisted by the authorities was in progress in the famous Shalimar Mughal Garden at the banks of Dal Lake Srinagar, four innocent Kashmiri youth belonging to Shopian district of Kashmir were murdered in cold blood by the cops of Ghagren Shopian Forces camp who opened fire at them when they were passing near the camp riding their motor bikes. There was anger and shutdown in the entire valley of Kashmir and Public protests against these killings.

On Wednesday 11 September 2013, the personal of the same above mentioned forces camp without any provocation opened fire on the protesters, protesting against the killing of four youth on September 7, thereby killing a 27 years old youth namely Rafi Ahmad Rather S/o: Ghulam Qadir Rather R/o: Saidpora, Shopian.

Before these incidents, on July 18, 2013 in Gool village of Ramban district four persons, including an engineer, were killed when personnel of 76 Battalion BSF stationed in a camp in Gool opened indiscriminate fire on the protestors. 60 persons were injured out of which two succumbed to their injuries later.

Excellency:

Be it Ghagren Shopian, Gool or any other place these Armed forces camps, present in every nook and corner of the State, and making J&K the most militrized zone in the world, have turned into  “Killer Camps”. The the Armed personnel in these camps are spewing blood of innocent people at their will and without any accountability whatsoever. Incidents like the above are becoming the order of the day for the hapless people of Jammu & Kashmir.

The continuous imposition of black laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act, Disturbed Areas Act and Public Safety Act provide complete immunity to the Indian Armed personnel against the prosecution for any crime in Kashmir. The cover of immunity has emboldened the trigger happy cops to pull the trigger any moment of their choice with complete impunity.

Though we have repeatedly demanded the repeal of these black laws and removal of these “Killer Camps” from populated areas so that continuous incidents of killing and harassment of the population could be stopped but the authorities seem to be bent upon to inflict maximum pain and injury to the people to bring them on their knees and dance to the tune of the authorities.

We do understand that having no large scale economic attraction, the pain and agony of Kashmiri population does not attract the attention of the international fraternity the way it should have been, however, being a nuclear flash point in South Asia Kashmir has the potential to affect the peace of South Asia and thereby the whole world in a big way. Besides being signotaries to the international charter of human rights it is the moral responisibility of every nation  to ensure that these basic human rights are adhered to by all. 

The situation in Kashmir is grim and greatly worrisome. Authorities in power are either mute spectators or collaborators to the killings in Kashmir, who coveniently provide the facade of democratic rule in the state. Even a scant respect for basic human rights is not relevant for them. With every passing day the situation is turning more and more volatile. It is high time that killing of innocent Kashmiris is put an end to so that the people of this land do get entitled at least to the basic human right, the right to life.

I hope your good self will use your diplomatic influence to impress upon the Indian authorities to desist from brutalizing the people of Kashmir and respect the internationally acknowledged basic human rights of the population in Kashmir.

With regards

Yours sincerely,

         -Sd-

 Mirwaiz Umar Farooq

Chairman

All Parties Hurriyat Conference

Police coerce children to spy in Kashmir

‘In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice.’ - Great Expectations

When this world is set in Indian-administered Kashmir, injustice is the air children breathe, as the recent case of 17-year-old Danish reveals. Defying strong-arm tactics of the police state, he recently pleaded in court that he be taken into judicial custody as he is not free in the outside world.

As he recounts his Kafkaesque ordeal, he tirelessly recalls dates, time and people in the present tense and with a little stammer. His narration takes 37 minutes. He was ‘arbitrarily’ detained for 16 days and forced by police to ‘spy’.  “For quite some time he had to be on the run as well,” says his lawyer Babar Qadri.

He was first picked up in November last year when he was “having his ice-cream” and charged with stone pelting. “Non-uniformed policemen came in a personal car and took me. They asked me to throw my ice-cream.”

During eight days of detention, he was subjected to physical and mental torture. Police beat him, showed him videos of stone pelting on a laptop and asked him to identity the perpetrators. They asked him to join them on night raids. Initially, Danish refused. Coercion continued until he was forced to reveal the addresses of two teenage boys. ‘They were my friends,’ he says. 

Danish suffered from fever and his health worsened. He was taken to a police doctor before appearing in a local court, but was directed not to divulge details about his deteriorating health.
He with other four other boys were produced before the court, handcuffed, and asked by police to mislead the court on the length of his detention. “I was to say that I spent only four days in custody but I spoke truth,” he relates. Court ordered his release on bail along with other boys.

Yet the same day he was taken to another police station, where he spent eight days in the lockup. His family had no access to him. ‘I smashed my head against the wall, screamed but no-one heard.’ He was again pressurized to identify  boys.                                                                                                         

Police are well trained in filming protests so that the participants can later be identified. 'Unlike the earlier phone videos, now a police officer is assigned to shoot videos with sophisticated equipment. There is a special police unit for this. These high-quality videos are well edited, zooming in to an individual in the crowd, with a recorded commentary in background,' a dissenter told me.

He was also physically assaulted. ‘A police guy slammed something on my head. My nose bled profusely. They tried to take off my trousers. I resisted. They took off my shirt and sprinkled chilli powder and water under my armpits.’ He was also denied access to medicine.

Police charged him with ‘attempted murder’. Danish says: ‘They levelled baseless allegations against me – of hurling a petrol bomb at a police official. Later, they changed it to tossing the bomb at a military bunker. It is unbelievable how they manufacture lies.’ His family spoke to the media, which, Danish says, antagonized the police: ‘They flung a newspaper at my face every morning and insulted my family.’

Amnesty International raised concern over his ‘unlawful’ detention. The Juvenile Justice Act in the Kashmir Valley treats boys over the age of 16 as adults, in violation of UNCRC and international human rights law. He was released on bail, but it provided no respite.

Police maintained a tight vigil over him and he was forced to change phone numbers. For over a week, he divided his day between two police stations to which he had to report. One day, police took him to night raids in his own locality. His family didn’t know his whereabouts. ‘Police told my family that I was in Gulmarg [Hill Station] with them so that I could breathe fresh air as they had been harsh on me.’

His lawyer, who was also threatened by police, says that when he told the local court that Danish was being used as a ‘spy’, the judge said he had no power and that the state’s High Court should be approached instead.

The other boys that had been arrested turned against Danish when the police brandished him as their henchman working in lieu of money. ‘In front of the arrested boys, a police guy patted my shoulder to show my allegiance to him. It was insulting,’ Danish explains. ‘Police created division and turned my own people against me.’ They also harassed his family. Desperate and caught in a Catch-22 situation, Danish finally broke his phone and SIM card, to avoid any further contact with the police.

Since mass protests of 2008 and 2010, in which over 200 people- some as young as nine – were killed by government forces, youth turned to stone-throwing as a form of protest; government is on qui vive to squelch dissent using ‘lawless’ laws to swoop down on people. Hundreds of youth were detained across Kashmir since Mohammad Afzal Guru’s covert hanging in India’s capital New Delhi.

Danish may be free now but charges against him remain and like many others he is under police radar.  Many share his story. Majority of the arrested teenagers in Valley are coerced by police to be part of their spying network, Qadri says.

He and his family are now lying low and avoiding communication. Two of his friends, whom I meet in Srinagar city, tell me they haven’t heard from him for days. I hear him though, through the audio clip which his friends transfer to my mobile phone. ‘We recorded his story so the truth is rescued. Police often coerce boys to change their statements. This is a testimony against their manufactured lies,’ his friend tells me.

67th Independence and Kashmir

Sixty seven years have gone by; the world has changed topsy-turvy over these years and so has India. The strenuous and arduous work of freedom fighters finally bore fruit on the jovial night of 15th August. The land was liberated from spiteful and vicious Firangis. The dreams seen by our forefathers bore fruit and the days of reconstruction began. Unanimously leaders and all around spoke of democracy, equality, secularism, freedom of speech, upliftment of poor, non alignment, freedom to raise one’s voice and a whole lot of things that formed the basis of India. No doubt many of these were practiced and it was the sequel of these efforts only that we are seeing the country at a formidable position.

But hold your breath if you are not a partisan and a parochial, the rendezvous with today’s so called success story has not been equitable enough. The visionary statements that applied were not equitable. Sixty seven years down the line the streets of Srinagar still reel under curfew, the mothers don’t get milk for their kids, the pregnant women are not allowed to go to hospitals, and the streets are nothing but secluded deserts of Sahara. Kashmir has always been treated with a different mindset, ideology, set of beliefs and nuances which apply to Kashmir only. Thousands of deaths in Kashmir does not shake the conscious of anyone across a country which claims itself to be comprising of eggheads, boffins and scholars but when a Mufti issues a trivial fatwa in the same region the news runs for no less than two weeks on the so called elite news channels of the country. The fear of protests other states makes Home Minister do the rounds and promise resolution but the killing of innocent people in proven fake encounters doesn’t shake his conscience. Wow how much we brag about Jawans but the same people say that for atrocities their men won’t get justice if tried in Kashmir courts, what does chief of Army mean by statements like this? The yardstick for Kashmir is different and so are the hearts and minds of people living there.

There has always been talking about Kashmir but does anybody even talk of fateful Kashmiri’s. They talk about it in New Delhi, Islamabad, Geneva, New York etc but do they talk about a 12 year boy playing cricket in bright sun and is killed while in cold blood, do they talk about 120 mass graves which get unearthed from a camp site, do they talk about those 12000 boys who have been taken to custody and are missing since then, do they ever talk of my childhood friend who was taken for assisting a search operation and then killed and my sobs still say whether it was his job. Words would fall short if I tell you what happens at a place which you all call bliss and wish to rendezvous with.

It’s a high time now. No government can claim that it does not know what Kashmiris want. The recent incidents in Kishtawar again make it clear that it’s not a valley centric moment only.

Much blood has flown down the Jehlum and Chenab valley in these 67 years and earlier as well. The issue needs to be resolved as was promised to Kashmiris. Till then Srinagar will always see black flags being hoisted on this day.

Kashmir: Culture under attack

A bigger nation influencing smaller territories is no secret, but between the two trips I made to Kashmir in a gap of three years, the Indian influence on the culture, language and history of valley is been done at a rapid pace, writes Iranian documentary film maker Mostafa Ahangarha.

I first visited the famous Kashmir valley in 2011. Rains welcomed me and the lands of saints seemed pristine—but there were scars of the ugly military footprint at every nook and corner.

Kashmir has its own language and history in art and culture but since the sub-continent was liberated from British rule, the Indian cultural project has been carried out with unflinching relentlessness. The influence has not been restricted to culture but even to basic necessities like food. Many restaurants serve Indian food; in ‘Lal Chowk’ -- the main square and market area in Srinagar, majority of shops sell Indian mainland dresses.

Khalil Jibran, the poet writer, once remarkable noted: pity that nation which doesn’t drink wine from its vineyards.

Cultural transaction is something desirable, as it enriches both sides. But when it comes only from one side and destroys the other, it is a big threat. During last few days I’ve been in some intellectual meetings with Kashmiri students. One of the important topics was ‘Preserving Kashmiri Language’— ‘Kashur’.

As the influence of Indian culture is not covert, understanding why Kashmiri youth are talking about preserving their language is not something difficult. During one of the several discussions I have had with Kashmir people working or studying in the Indian capital a strong argument given to me was Urdu was all pervasive in valley because the language was considered as a source of Islam for Kashmiris. It was baffled!

I don’t have the details of how much Islamic research work from Pakistan or India is done in Urdu. But I am almost sure there are few intellectual impacts from them in the Muslim World.

If we look at Pakistan and India, hardly have we found significant intellectual work in Urdu and whatever we find have very little impact. The main sources of Islamic literature are in Arabic, therefore Urdu as a language to convey the Islamic message would lead to miscarriage of true history of Muslims.

As the official language for education in Kashmir like rest of India is English, students can easily access huge amount of intellectual works which have been published by Islamic scholars all around the world. Therefore, one wonders why somebody should leave these two languages for studying Islam and pick up Urdu instead?

Isn’t it anything else then we are limiting our horizons ourselves? Why do we define our world in such a limited manner?

As an Iranian, I feel language is the back bone of any culture, if strength has to be escalated it must be done by strongly preserving language, speaking and writing in it, to take it to a next level.

Mostafa Ahangarha is a documentary filmmaker from Iran.  He is working on his next project ‘History of Art’ in Kashmir.

Sheher-e-khaas or Sheher-e-khasta

In an interview for a post in Government College, I was asked where I was from. When I named a place in so called Sheher-e-khaas, the interviewer (a Kashmiri Pandit) turned to another one(a non-Kashmiri) in the panel and remarked that the place in Kashmir is what Gaza is in Palestine.

Subsequently, he asked me what the reason was that the people of Sheher-e-khaas were a continuous trouble. Why was it that the youth were always out on the roads pelting stones while as the uptown areas were peaceful or relatively peaceful? At that time, I could tell him that they have not read histories from your prescribed history books but they have lived them out.

They had seen their loved ones being murdered in cold blood by the men in the uniform, and then watched the calm and composed news readers on Doordarshan announcing them being killed in encounter, labeling  them as militants. The rage at the helplessness had been infused in the very red of their blood. If you let them, they may learn to forgive but they cannot forget. These were perhaps the abstract and complicated reasons that would have need him interlocutors, commissions, probes and what not to be verified.

But had the interview been today, I could have just asked him to have a cursory look on the Sheher-e-khaas and he would have found reasons engraved on the very substance of the Sheher-e-khaas turned to Sheher-e-khasta(ruined city). Sheher-e-khaas turned into a piss pot by the khaas people of the Sheher (city) would have revealed all.

The stones scattered on the dug-out roads would tell him where they guide the hands of youth to pelt them. The foetid air would guide his nose to the odor of inefficiency that needs to be pelted upon. The closed windows and heaps of garbage would tell him who it needed to be thrown on. And I am sure the fountains on dangerously wide four-ways would give him no aesthetic pleasure. And he too would be enraged at the shrieking entourage of white and black cars ordering him to make way for the caravan of  overflowing incapability.

An article by: Ishrat Mattoo

J&K behind other states due to militancy: Omar

‘Gun culture caused economic disaster, loss of precious human lives’

Srinagar, Dec 12: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Thursday said Jammu and Kashmir lagged behind other states in terms of development “due to eruption of militancy” more than 20 years ago.
"Our development remained stand still while other states went much ahead on road to progress during the period of militancy which gripped the state for over 20 years," Omar said addressing a public meeting at Lalpora in Kupwara district, 120-kms from here.
He said the “gun culture caused economic disaster and loss of precious human lives in the state.”

The government has worked sincerely and with a commitment to make good the losses and the damage caused by gun and put the economy back on rails, the chief minister said.
"We worked for restoration of peace and tranquillity, made sincere efforts to safeguard human rights, reform the security and law and order machinery, to create employment opportunities, upgrade roads and launch new power projects during the last about five years which have started showing encouraging results on the ground," he said.
Omar said his party fought the elections in 2008 to address the development issues and day-to-day problems of the people and made it clear that the contesting of elections will not amount to the resolution of all political issues confronting Jammu and Kashmir.
He said besides devoting full attention on the comprehensive development of 
Jammu and Kashmir in all the regions and sub-regions equitably, "we worked sincerely for creating an atmosphere where under political issues could be addressed politically through the process of dialogue."
Omar announced special sub-divisions of Roads and Buildings department, Public Health Engineering Department and Irrigation and Flood Control departments for Lolab area. He said all the other demands of the area would be given due consideration by the government. 
Omar said that he will continue with his endeavors towards ensuring internal autonomy and financial self-reliance of the State to “achieve the goal of peace and prosperity.”
Referring to financial health of J&K, Omar said the total income of the State by all means is Rs 6500 crores while the expenditure on paying salaries to government employees alone amounts to Rs. 1350 crores annually. “In addition we have to bear losses on electricity supply to the tune of Rs 2000 crores and another Rs 2000 crores are being paid as pension to the pensioners,” he said, adding his government has launched “a gigantic power generation programme in the State to achieve financial self-reliance and provide 24x7 power supply to the people.”
“The total energy generation since the independence to the year 2008 was of the order of 750 MWs. My government during the last about five years has given effect to the power projects of the capacity of about 1800 MWs while the edifice has already been laid for generating 9000 MWs of electricity in the State during the next 7 to 8 years which will revolutionize the State’s financial resources,” he claimed. An official spokesman said the Chief Minister on reaching Lalpora was welcomed “by a large number of enthusiastic crowd who waved flags, raised slogans in his and in favour of his government and the party and showered flowers over him.” “Omar thanked people for this,” the spokesman said.

Power scarcity triggers violent protests in Bijbehara; Government

Bijbehara, Dec 12: Non-availability of electricity in this South Kashmir town of district Anantnag (Islamabad) triggered violent protests here on Thursday. 
 Police had to use force to quell the protesters who blocked the Srinagar-Jammu highway for hours together.
 Reports said that early in the morning people in large numbers gathered on the highway area of the town and held protest demonstrations against Power Development Department (PDD). They accused the department of plunging them into complete darkness since almost a week.
 “Shouting anti-government and anti-PDD slogans the protesters also blocked the busy Srinagar-Jammu highway due to which traffic came to grinding halt for hours together,” reports said.
 They said that later senior officers from civil and police administration rushed to the spot and assured the protesters of addressing their problem soon. However, the protesters did not relent and continued to block the road.

 “Police resorted to baton charge to quell the protesters who retaliated by pelting stones,” witnesses said.
 They said that police also rounded up about three protesters.
 “The shops at many places also remained shut,” reports said.
 People have been complaining that the town is being subjected to unscheduled power cuts and since a week the area is completely reeling under darkness.
 “PDD does not stick to its schedule and things have turned worse since a week as we hardly get any electricity and the government seems to be casual about our plight,” said a resident Zahoor Ahmad.
 “The political parties promise us heaven as the elections approach but then fail to provide us even minimum basic amenities,” said another resident Adil Rashid.
 Executive Engineer, PDD division Bijbehara, Muneeb Ahmad said; “The maintenance work of the conductor of sub-transmission division is on and as a precautionary measure we had to snap the electricity during day time”.
 He said during evening and night time, however, the department supplies power but due to overload at times it gets affected.
 “The repair work will take around 10 days more after which electricity will be fully restored,” said Muneeb. He appealed the people of the town to use electricity judiciously to avoid overloading.

We have no information on LoC wall: Pakistan

Islamabad, Dec 12: Pakistan has no information of reported plans to build a wall along the LoC and any "unilateral" action by India cannot make the ceasefire line the permanent border, PM's Advisor on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz has said.
Pakistan has not received any information from India about the construction of a structure like the Berlin Wall along the Line of Control, he said.
Any unilateral action in this regard by India "cannot declare the LoC as permanent border", Aziz was quoted as saying by state-run Radio Pakistan.

Aziz said strikes by US drones are a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and they have proved counter-productive in the war against terror.
Though there has been a significant decrease in drone strikes this year‚ Pakistan wants an end to such attacks, he said. Pakistan has been actively raising the issue of drones at every international forum, he added.
On the Pakistan-Iran gas pipeline project‚ Aziz said both countries are negotiating three technical issues - an extension in the deadline for laying the pipeline‚ financing for the project and fixation of gas prices.
Ministerial level talks will be held on the project after the completion of technical talks. 
Meanwhile the Chief Minister of Pakistan's Punjab province Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif Thursday called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and underscored the importance of resumption of the Indo-Pak dialogue process and peaceful resolution of all issues.
Shahbaz also delivered a message of goodwill from his elder brother and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif while emphasising "Pakistan's desire to forge friendly and cooperative relations with India, in the interest of peace and prosperity of the people of the two countries and of the region," a Pakistan High Commission release said here.
Shahbaz Sharif is the No.2 in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League and the meeting assumes significance given the disappointment expressed by Singh over the progress on agreed outcome of the meeting between him and his Pakistani counterpart in New York in September. Shahbaz was accompanied by Special Assistant to Prime Minister Tariq Fatemi, Minister of State for Commerce Khurram Dastagir Khan and Provincial Minister for Education Rana Mashood Khan and High Commissioner Salman Bashir during the meeting which was "cordial, constructive and forward looking", the High Commission said.
The Chief Minister also underscored the importance of resumption of dialogue and peaceful resolution of all issues, it added.