Canada’s media networks have all been slammed by the recession. But the government is reportedly considering bailouts for its friends at private companies CTV and CanWest, while forcing the CBC to drastically cut 800 staff and programming.
Our CBC is a national treasure, and a pillar of public-interest journalism in a country whose media is owned by a few large firms. We won’t hear an outcry from their media outlets, and the CBC is too principled to use its megaphone to make the case for itself. We are the only voice the CBC has.
We urgently need a massive public outcry to Save the CBC, click below to sign the petition. The government is weak and falling in the polls and enough outrage can make the difference. Parliamentarians have promised to deliver the petition directly in the House of Commons, and we'll even fly a plane and banner over Parliament Hill with the message! Sign now, and forward this email to everyone who might care about this:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_The number of signatures on the petition will be crucial to the effectiveness of the campaign, so let’s get everyone who cares about the CBC to sign.
The CBC is facing a budget shortfall that amounts to just $6 per Canadian, but its request to the government for a bridging loan to cover this was denied. The deep cuts the CBC is making will damage the organization across the board, and they will not be the last. If we don’t stand up for the CBC now, it stands to die a death by a thousand cuts. Harper’s minority government is politically vulnerable and falling in the polls – public outrage could turn the government around on this, but it has to happen now. Let's move quickly.
With hope, Ricken, Lisa-Marie, Laryn and the whole Avaaz Canada team.
PS - here are some links for more info on this:
An excellent web resource for information and action on the CBC, including the government's consideration of bailouts of CanWest and other companies: http://www.friends.ca/
The Star reports on how opposition parties accuse Harper of using the recession as an excuse to gut the CBC:
http://www.thestar.com/News/
Union says Harper government strangling CBC:
http://www.cjad.com/news/565/
Ian Morrison: Stephen Harper’s hidden agenda for the CBC:
http://www.straight.com/
A crisis of identity - A reader letter to the Globe and Mail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.
Thanks to a Canadian Senator, Marc Harb, there is now a Bill to end Canada's commercial seal hunt, which is expected to take the lives of more than 250,000 baby seals this year alone.
Support the historic Bill to stop the hunt!
Imagine a Canada in which there are no more baby seals hooked and dragged onto boats while still conscious. No more seals as young as three weeks old skinned alive. No more needless slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seals each year.
With the proposed seal product ban in the EU and Russia's recent ban on hunting harp seals less than a year old, this dream can soon be made a reality. The momentum to end Canada's commercial seal hunt has never been stronger.
Senator Harb wants to fill the Senate with messages of support for his Bill. Please sign the petition today!
»Take action link: http://www.care2.com/go/z/e/AFlLF/zjYz/Ao5pD
Samer, ThePetitionSite
Last week, on his first visit to Africa, Pope Benedict said that "[AIDS] cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems".
The Pope's statement is at odds with the research on AIDS prevention, and a setback to decades of hard work on AIDS education and awareness. With powerful moral influence over more than 1.1 billion Catholics in the world, and 22 million HIV positive Africans, these words could dramatically affect the AIDS pandemic and put millions of lives at risk. Worldwide concern is starting to show results and a willingness by the Vatican to revise the statement - sign our urgent petition asking the Pope to take care not to undermine proven AIDS prevention strategies:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/pope_benedict_petition
This is not a religious dispute, but a grave public health concern. Personal beliefs of Catholics and all people should be respected, and the Pope's advocacy for a culture of fidelity and respect could be helpful in prevention if condoms were not discouraged. The Catholic Church engages in a vast amount of social service work, including the care of those living with AIDS. But the Pope's claim that condom distribution is not an effective AIDS prevention mechanism is not supported by research. It's untrue, and if it diminishes condom use, it will be deadly.
The fact is, HIV and AIDS are prevented by condom use. There is no easy solution to the spread of this tragic disease, but condoms and education are the best known prevention combination and have not been found to increase risky sexual behaviour. That is why even priests and nuns working in Africa have questioned the Pope's statements.
We may not be able to ask the Catholic Church to change its broader position, but we are asking the Pope to stop actively speaking out against prevention strategies that work. It's important that people of all beliefs, especially Catholics, call on the Pope to exercise care in his leadership on this issue. Sign below then spread the word to your friends and family - this petition could actually save lives:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/pope_benedict_petition
25 million people worldwide have already died of AIDS, and 12 million children have been left without parents. If enough of us join this outcry, we will win an important battle in the struggle for a world without AIDS.
With hope,
Ricken, Alice, Ben, Graziela, Iain, Brett, Paula, Pascal, Luis, Paul, Veronique, Milena and the whole Avaaz team
PS - this campaign was polled among a randomized sample of 20,000 Avaaz members. Over 90% supported running the campaign, and over 75% of Catholic Avaaz members supported it.
Sources:
The official position of the UN and the World Health Organization on condoms and AIDS prevention: http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/Resources/FeatureStories/archive/2009/20090319_preventionposition.asp
The Pope's statement opposing condoms (BBC): http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7951839.stm
European governments criticise Pope Benedict for his statement http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7950671.stm
Condoms 'aggravate' AIDS scourge, Pope says: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=1399781
CNN Report on the Pope’s anti-condom position: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhxqvVmgEbg&feature=related
Vatican backtracking on condom statement: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5934912.ece
Growth of the Catholic Church in Africa, see: http://www.zenit.org/article-18894?l=english and http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29777984/
South African Bishop supporting condom use: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29777984/
UNAIDS Report on the AIDS epidemic: http://www.unaids.org/en/CountryResponses/Regions/default.asp
Ricken Patel - Avaaz.org <>Dear Friends,
As the Chairperson of the English branch of the International Union of Parliamentarians for Palestine (IUPFP), I am pleased to invite you to our launch meeting in Parliament on 6:30pm Tuesday 31st March under the title 'Solidarity with Palestine after the Gaza onslaught'.
We are honoured to have speaking at this meeting guests who are leading elected representatives of the Palestinian and Lebanese people in the persons of Mr Hussein el-Hajj Hassan MP from the Loyalty to the Resistance Parliamentary Bloc in Lebanon, and also Mr Hasan Khreishi the Vice President of the Palestinian Parliament.
We also have esteemed guest speakers Mr Jeremy Corbyn MP and Mr Dyab Abou Jahjah the International Co-ordinator of the IUPFP.
To confirm your attendance please RSVP to me via replying to this email at the latest by 4pm Friday 27th March and you will receive a confirmation of your attendance. Please also let me know if you are bringing any other person(s) with you.
Yours sincerely, Sukant Chandan
Chair, English Branch of the IUPFP www.iupfp.com/
A comprehensive survey of the Pakistani jehadi groups and their 'links'
By Amir Mir
The monster of Islamic militancy is spreading in Pakistan even though the Bush era has ended amid an endless war against terror. Taliban are claiming new grounds and al-Qaeda network is thriving by establishing a modus operandi which exploits its local affiliates -- militant outfits active in Kashmir and Afghanistan -- to pursue the global jehadi agenda of the Osama-led terror outfit.
The swelling forces of extremists along the Pak-Afghan border not only pose a threat to the US-led Allied Forces in Afghanistan but also to the people of Pakistan. Like their Afghan counterparts, Taliban militias are compelling the Pakistan government to impose their version of Islamic Shariat. Although Musharraf had decided to align with the US in the aftermath of 9/11, the infrastructure of Islamic extremism built during the last two decades allegedly by the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment was not dismantled as he deemed it fit to employ terrorism as state policy both in Afghanistan and Jammu and Kashmir.
Resultantly, the fanatic jehadis are literally marching on the state. The militancy is now spreading from FATA and other the border areas to the urban settlements of Peshawar, Quetta, Lahore, Karachi and Rawalpindi. The most recent instance: attack on Sri Lankan cricketers, allegedly by a group of Pakistani militants in Lahore on March 3, 2009.
Analysts say the menace of talibanisation is escalating rapidly because a new generation of highly-charged and committed Islamic militants is emerging in and around the Pak-Afghan tribal belt. Generally referred to as the Pakistan Taliban, these new militant leaders, new jehadi cadres and new militant groups are linked to al-Qaeda and Taliban. Predominantly Pakistani, they emerged after the US invasion of Afghanistan, and are presently leading the rebellion against the Pakistani establishment's decision to join hands with Washington in the war on terror. They are technology and media-savvy, are influenced by various indigenous tribal nationalisms, and honour tribal codes that govern social life in Pakistani rural areas.
This new generation of militants is replacing the original Taliban, led by Ameerul Momineen Mullah Mohammad Omar, who ruled till 2001, and were believed to have been created by Pakistan's intelligence agencies. The old guards, mostly Afghan fighters and a product of the Soviet invasion, no longer enjoy as much command as they did before the 9/11 terror attacks.
The holy war fought by the new Taliban is aimed at infidels occupying Afghanistan and those safeguarding the secular values of the Pakistani society. They want to cleanse Pakistan of all such elements and transform it as a pure Islamic state. Their threat seems real, in view of their stronghold in areas like Bajaur and Swat where they have already forced the government to enforce Shariat Laws.
The worrisome aspect for Pakistan is that US intelligence agencies firmly believe that with a gush of motivated youth flooding towards the realm of jehad and joining the al-Qaeda-cadres, Pakistan is a potential site for jehadi recruitment and training for al-Qaeda, despite the capture of over 500 operatives from within Pakistan.
A majority of the Pakistani jehadi groups may well be described as the civilian face of the Pakistan Army which has been nurturing and exporting militancy in the name of Islam to pursue its geo-strategic agenda not only in the immediate region comprising India and Afghanistan, but also in Central Asia, Chechnya and the West. Subsequently, Pakistan has become home to plenty of jehadi organisations (having links with al-Qaeda and Taliban) whose goals are believed to be easily compatible with those of the Pakistani state. These militant groups could not have achieved their present size without the active support of the Pakistan establishment. These very groups have made Pakistan a captive territory to push forth the global jehadi agenda of Osama bin Laden. But, the dilemma is that the Pakistani establishment apparently lacks both will and capacity to counter this enterprise.
Let's now briefly examine the key militant groups based in Pakistan and their hidden and known links.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) led by Baitullah Mehsud
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is quite a recent phenomenon as it was established on Dec 12, 2007 when a shura or council of 40 senior militant leaders commanding an army of around 50,000 gathered in Peshawar and decided to unite under a single banner. Baitullah from South Waziristan was appointed the ameer (chief) of the TTP, Maulana Hafiz Gul Bahadur from North Waziristan was made the senior naib ameer (senior deputy chief) while Maulana Faqir Muhammad of the Bajaur Agency was made the naib ameer (deputy chief).
The TTP shura not only had representation from all the seven tribal agencies of the FATA, but also from the settled districts of the NWFP, including the districts of Swat, Bannu, Tank, Lakki Marwat, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohistan, Buner and Malakand.
A statement by Baitullah's spokesman Maulvi Omar on Dec 13, 2007 stated that the sole objective behind the launching of the TTP is to unite the Pakistani Taliban and set up a centralised organisation against the NATO forces in Afghanistan, besides waging a 'defensive jehad' against the Pakistani forces, carrying out military operations against innocent civilians in the FATA and NWFP.
In an interview with Al Jazeera correspondent Ahmed Zaidan after the launching of the TTP, Baitullah Mehsud declared: In an interview with Al Jazeera correspondent Ahmed Zaidan after the launching of the TTP, Baitullah Mehsud declared: "Our main aim is to finish Britain and United States and to crush the pride of the non-Muslims. We pray to God to give us the ability to destroy the White House, New York and London. And we have trust in God. Very soon, we will be witnessing jehad's miracles".
Baitullah Mehsud, who prefers being called a Pakistani Talib, virtually controls much of the South Waziristan agency on the restive Pak-Afghan border where militancy has given birth to a new generation of militant leaders. Already named by the Musharraf regime as the prime suspect in the Benazir Bhutto murder case, 35-year-old Baitullah reportedly commands a force of 40,000 to 50,000 fighters, who are willing to die for the cause of Islam.
Baitullah had pledged himself to Mullah Omar in March 2005 in the presence of five leading Taliban commanders including Mullah Dadullah who was killed in Afghanistan. Like Mullah Omar's Taliban militia, the private army of Baitullah too, has hundreds of foreigners, mostly Uzbeks, imposes Shariat with a view to prevent 'vice' and promotes 'virtue'.
The Pakistani authorities accuse Baitullah of receiving money from al-Qaeda and the Taliban to run the affairs of his parallel state in South Waziristan. He has been in the limelight for almost four years due to his well-known role in spearheading with the help of his suicide bombers a bloody insurgency against the Pakistani security forces, which are busy hunting fugitive al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the trouble-stricken tribal areas on the Pak-Afghan border.
Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammad (TNSM) led by Sufi Mohammad
Generally referred to as the Pakistani Taliban, primarily to distinguish itself from the Afghan Taliban led by Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi or the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws, led by Maulana Sufi Mohammad, is a militant Wahabi group which has fast emerged in the Malakand Division of the North West Frontier Province and in the Bajuar Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas as a private army to reckon with.
Known as a pro-Taliban jehadi organisation having sympathies with Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammad Omar, the TNSM motto is 'Shariat ya Shahadat' (Islamic laws or martyrdom) which rejects all political and religio-political parties for they follow the western style of democracy and openly condone the use of force in jehad.
The members of the group are identified by their shoulder-length hair and camouflage vests over traditional shalwar kameez clothing, being the trademark of Sufi, as well as black turbans which has become their identity. The TNSM members are therefore referred to as the black turbans. Ideologically, the TNSM is dedicated to transform Pakistan into a Taliban style Islamic state where Shariat should be the supreme law of the land.
In the words of Sufi: "Those opposing the imposition of Sharia in Pakistan are Wajibul Qatl (worthy of death)." The TNSM rejects democracy as un-Islamic. "We want enforcement of Islamic judicial system in totality: judicial, political, economic, jehad fi sabilillah (holy war in the name of Allah), education and health. In my opinion the life of the faithful will automatically be moulded according to the Islamic system when the Islamic judicial system is enforced", Sufi had declared in November 2001 before proceeding to Afghanistan along with thousands of his armed followers to join the Taliban in Afghanistan in their fight against the US-led Allied Forces.
Upon his return home, Sufi was jailed on terrorism charges where he had to spend the next seven years, before being released as a result of a peace deal with the government.
The Swat chapter of TNSM is headed by Sufi Mohammad's son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah, who has already become a household name in the picturesque valley. His private army fiercely resisted the Pakistan army when it launched a military operation in Swat in October 2007 to dismantle the militant network and demolish the infrastructure of the TNSM headquarters and its privately-run FM Radio station.
However, a year and a half later, the forces of Fazlullah eventually compelled the government to sign a peace deal with Sufi to restore peace in Swat.
As things stand, Fazlullah, having a fighting strength of over 5,000 in Swat, has growing links with al-Qaeda and Taliban, amidst intelligence reports describing the valley as crucial from the point of view of a larger front that al-Qaeda is in the process of creating in Pakistan. And remember Swat is just 160 kilometers from Islamabad.
Harkatul Jehadul Islami (HUJI) led by Qari Saifullah Akhtar
Led by Qari Saifullah Akhtar, who has already been accused by Benazir Bhutto in her posthumous book as the mastermind of the October 18, 2007 suicide attack during her welcome procession in Karachi, the Harkatul Jehadul Islami (HUJI) is a Pakistan-based jehadi group with affiliates in India and Bangladesh. While the exact formation date of the group is not known, its origin is traced to the Soviet-Afghan war.
Qari Saifullah along with two of his associates, seminary students from Karachi, were instrumental in laying the foundation of the Jamiat Ansarul Afghaneen (the Party of the Friends of Afghan People), in 1980. Towards the end of the Afghan jehad, the Jamiat rechristened itself as HUJI and reoriented its strategy to fight for the cause of fellow Muslims in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir.
Considered close to the ameer of the Afghan Taliban Mullah Mohammad Omar, Qari had attempted to stage a coup in 1995 to topple the second government of Benazir Bhutto. He was subsequently arrested and tried, before being freed by the security agencies in 1996 soon after the dismissal of the Bhutto government.
Later he travelled to Afghanistan, where he became advisor to Mullah Omar on political affairs.
Before the US invasion of Afghanistan in November 2001, the HUJI had got membership among the Taliban cabinet as three Taliban ministers and 22 judges belonged to it. Qari was one of the few jehadi leaders who had escaped with Mullah Omar after the Allied Forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001.
He first took shelter in the South Waziristan Agency; then moved to Peshawar and eventually fled to Saudi Arabia, from where he decided to move to the UAE. Three years later, on Aug 6, 2004, he was arrested by the UAE authorities and handed over to the Pakistani agencies, only to be deported. He was arrested after revelations during investigations of the Dec 2003 twin suicide attacks on Musharraf that he had been executing terrorist operations in Pakistan with the help of his men in Pakistan.
But instead of trying to prosecute and convict him after his arrest, the authorities chose to keep him under detention for the next two years and nine months, without even filing any criminal charges against him in any court of law.
A few months before Benazir's return home, he was quietly released, before being arrested again in February after Bhutto's claim in her posthumous book pertaining to his alleged involvement in the Karachi suicide bombing and the subsequent pressure created by the international community. He was released again after a couple of months following a series of suicide bombings in Lahore, targeting the Naval War College and the Federal Investigation Agency head office.
Jamiatul Ansar (JUA) led by Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil
Known as the only jehadi organisation from Pakistan with a record of closeness to Osama bin Laden, Jamiatul Ansar (JUA) is led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman Khalil who has enjoyed a long career in the ISI-sponsored Afghan and Kashmir jehads. Originally launched as the Harkatul Ansar, the group was renamed as the Harkatul Mujahideen (HUM or the Movement of the Holy Warriors) after the US designated it a Foreign Terrorist Organisation in October 1997 and then re-named as the Jamiatul Ansar after the Musharraf regime banned the HUM in January 2002, under American pressure.
Believed to be a Wahabi member of Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF) for "Jehad Against the Crusaders and the Jewish People" and a co-signatory of bin Laden's first fatwa issued in 1998 calling for attacks against the US, Maulana Khalil was in the al-Qaeda training camps struck by the US cruise missiles in Khost and Jalalabad in August 1998.
The JUA leadership represents Deobandi School of Islamic thought whose members are fanatic Sunni Muslims. With a pan-Islamic ideology, the jehadi organisation struggles to achieve secession of Jammu and Kashmir from India through militant means and its eventual merger with Pakistan.
Following the August 1998 American missile attacks on al-Qaeda training camps in eastern Afghanistan, Khalil had vowed at a press conference in Islamabad that the harm done to the members of his jehadi group by the US strikes, would not go unanswered. And the Americans still take seriously his 1998 public warning at the news conference: "For each of us killed or wounded in the cowardly US attack, at least 100 Americans will be killed. I may not be alive, but you will remember my words", Khalil had stated.
As of today, the US intelligence agencies believe that the Harkatul Mujahideen still retains links, like most of other jehadi groups, with the Taliban remnants and al-Qaeda operatives hiding on the Pak-Afghan border. Khalil took hundreds of his men to Afghanistan after the US-led Allied Forces had attacked Afghanistan in 2001. The Harkat chief returned home safely in January 2002 and lived for next six months in an Islamabad sanctuary, with no constraints until August 2002 when he was placed under house arrest.
The intelligence circles say he was taken into protective custody after American intelligence sleuths stationed in Islamabad had sought his custody to debrief him. The Pakistani authorities, however, had refused to oblige. Maulana Khalil was released a few months later.
Yet Khalil's name once again hit the international media headlines following the June 5, 2005 arrest of a pair of Pakistani-Americans by the FBI from the sleepy little farming town of Lodi, California. Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer Hayat were later charged with lying to the authorities regarding their connection with jehadi training camps in Pakistan. They told the FBI they had received training in terrorism at a military training camp being run by Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, who maintains a jehadi facility at Dhamial area in Rawalpindi.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) led by Mohammad Akram Lahori
Most of the major terrorist operations carried out against the Western targets in Pakistan since the 9/11 terror attacks appear to have a common grandmother -- the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) -- a Sunni Deobandi organisation which is the group of choice today for hard-core militants who are adamant to pursue their ambitious jehadi agenda in Pakistan.
Launched in 1996 as a militant sectarian Sunni group, the LeJ today is the most violent terrorist group operating in Pakistan with the help of its lethal suicide squad. As with most of the Sunni sectarian and militant groups, almost the entire LeJ leadership is made up of people who have fought in Afghanistan and most of its cadre strength has been drawn from numerous Sunni madrassas in Pakistan. The LeJ was formed by a breakaway faction of the Sunni extremists of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), which walked out of the outfit, accusing its parent organisation of deviating from the ideals of its co-founder, Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, who was allegedly assassinated by his Shia rivals in February 1990. The LeJ was actually launched by Riaz Basra who was succeeded by Akram Lahori, presently behind bars in Karachi on terrorism charges.
The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi uses terror tactics as a part of its grand strategy to force the state into accepting its narrow interpretations of the Sunni sectarian doctrines as official doctrines. Besides targeting the US interests in Pakistan, the victims of its terror tactics have been leaders and workers of rival Shia outfits, bureaucrats, policemen and worshippers. On August 14, 2001, General Musharraf, in the face of growing public criticism of his failure to control anti-Shia violence, announced the banning of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
On Jan 15, 2002, Musharraf banned the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). Soon afterwards, the regime rounded up a large number of the activists of the two sectarian outfits. However, despite being outlawed almost seven years ago, both the groups continue to carry out terrorist activities across Pakistan.
Since 2002, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has provided services for large-scale suicide attacks. A suicide operation in March 2002 in an Islamabad church in the well-guarded sensitive diplomatic enclave killed five Christians, including two American nationals.
In May 2002, eleven Frenchmen, who were mistaken for being Americans, were blown up in Karachi and on June 14, 2002, twelve Pakistanis were killed in a suicide attack on US diplomats. Five of the 10 terrorists identified belonged to the LeJ cadres. It was also the first occasion that police identified LeJ as being involved in all the three incidents. One of the photographed men, Asif Ramzi, was already wanted in the Daniel Pearl murder case, with a three million rupees-reward offered for his capture. According to investigators, the al-Qaeda network worked in close coordination with the LeJ cadres to plan both the car bomb attacks in Karachi.
On Jan 30, 2003, the US State Department added the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi to its List of Foreign Terrorist Organisations and to those outfits covered under an Executive Order.
Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) led by Maulana Masood Azhar
The Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) or the Army of the Prophet Mohammad, is one of the deadliest militant groups operating from Pakistan and waging 'jehad' against the Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir. It was launched by Maulana Masood Azhar at the behest of the premiere intelligence agency of Pakistan in Feb 2000, shortly after he was released from an Indian jail, in exchange for hostages on board an Indian Airlines plane which was hijacked by five armed Kashmiri militants and taken to Kandahar in December 1999.
While resuming his activities in Pakistan almost immediately after his release, Azhar announced the formation of Jaish-e-Mohammad with the prime objective of fighting out the Indian security forces in Kashmir. Along with Masood Azhar, the Indian government had to release two more militants who had been arrested on terrorism charges -- Sheikh Ahmed Omar Saeed and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar. Strong Deobandi creed forms the primary religious and ideological base for the JeM as well as the Taliban. In fact, the Taliban movement was launched by the students of the very network of 9000 madrassas which the Jaish's (formerly Harkat) parent organisation -- Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam -- led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman runs across Pakistan.
Masood Azhar only knit the ties stronger after his release as he toured Kandahar to secure the blessings of Taliban leadership after he had planned to launch Jaish. Having gone through many ups and downs in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks, it was in 2007 that the slowing down of the Indo-Pak peace process by the decision makers in New Delhi apparently made the Musharraf regime to reactivate the Jaish -- apparently to re-launch cross border offensives in 'Occupied' Jammu and Kashmir.
The Jaish was later reorganised under the command of Mufti Abdul Rauf, the younger brother of Masood Azhar. In July 2005, the British intelligence agencies investigating the 7/7 (2005) suicide bombings in London informed their Pakistani counterparts that two of the four suicide bombers Shehzad Tanweer and Siddique Khan, had met Osama Nazir, a Jaish suicide trainer, in Faisalabad, a few months before the 7/7 attacks when they had visited Pakistan.
A year later, the Jaish once again became the focus of world attention in August 2006 after it transpired that Rashid Rauf, an alleged al-Qaeda member named as the main plotter of a terrorist plan to blow up US-bound British airliners with the help of liquid explosives, was a close relative of Masood Azhar. Rashid Rauf was accused of helping train plotters in the use of explosives in readiness for their attempt to commit mass murder in the sky. He was arrested on August 9, 2007 from a Jaish-run religious seminary in the Model Town area of Bahawalpur. In December 2007, Rashid Rauf escaped from police custody under mysterious circumstances, only to be killed almost one year later in an American predator strike at an al-Qaeda hide-out in Waziristan.
In a latest development, Azhar has reportedly abandoned his headquarters in the Model Town area of Bahawalpur and temporarily shifted his base to the South Waziristan region in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks. There are reports that Masood Azhar was asked to restrict his activities following Indian government's recent demand to hand him over to New Delhi on terrorism charges.
While foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and information minister Sherry Rehman have already stated that Azhar was missing and that the government was unaware of his whereabouts, his close circles say the Jaish chief had first left for Muzaffarabad, but eventually decided to temporarily shift his based to the North Waziristan Agency, thinking it safer than any other place under the present circumstances.
>Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) led by Prof Hafiz Mohammad Saeed
Literally meaning "Army of the Pure", the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), founded by Prof Hafiz Mohammad Saeed in 1991 at the Kunar province of Afghanistan, dreaded for its guerrilla attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and known for the infamous fidayeen attack on the Red Fort in New Delhi, has proved to be one of the most dangerous jehadi groups operating out of Pakistan and fighting the Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.
The lethal Lashkar is an Ahle Hadith (Wahhabi) jehadi group which was born as an armed wing of Markaz Dawatul Irshad (MDI) or Centre for Proselytisation and Preaching. The MDI was set up in 1988 by three Islamic scholars -- Prof Hafiz Mohammad Saeed and Zafar Iqbal, who were professors of Islamic studies at the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, and Dr Abdullah Azzam, a professor of the International Islamic University, Islamabad. Dr Azzam was also the ideologue for the Palestinian militant group, Hamas, besides being the religio-political mentor of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
The main purpose of the MDI was to promote the purification of the society, and to build a society on the teachings of Quran and Sunnah. Toward the end of the Afghan war, the MDI set up an armed wing called Lashkar-e-Taiba. With the launching of the Lashkar in 1991, several training camps were set up in the eastern Afghanistan provinces of Kantar and Paktia, both of which had a sizable number of Al Hadith (Wahabi) followers of Islam, with the aim of participating in the jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
The participation of the cadres in Afghan jehad is believed to have helped its leadership gain the trust of the Pakistani intelligence establishment. Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir beginning in 1989 is considered to have provided an active battleground for the LeT militants when its top brass was made to turn its attention from Afghanistan and devote itself to waging jehad in Jammu and Kashmir. The LeT soon shot to prominence for launching some deadly guerilla operations against the Indian security forces in the Kashmir Valley, especially the 2001 fidayeen attack on the Red Fort in New Delhi. However, Hafiz Saeed stepped down as the LeT chief in December 2001 and announced the launching of the Jamaatul Daawa (JuD). However, the US State Department which had actually designated the LeT a foreign terrorist organisation in 2002, describes the JuD as the 'front organisation' of the Lashkar.
The LeT was once again put in the spotlight after the bloody Mumbai attacks of Nov 26, 2008. Although the Lashkar-e-Taiba strongly refuted its involvement, the Indian authorities claimed that the lone terrorist captured alive (Ajmal Kasab) has confessed to being member of the LeT, belonging to the Faridkot village of Okara district in Punjab. After the UN banned the JuD as a terrorist group after the 26/11 tragedy, Pakistan subsequently conceded that Ajmal Kasab was its national. The ban was followed by the arrest of the Muzaffarabad-based chief operational commander of the LeT, Maulana Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, being the mastermind of the Mumbai terror attacks.
The LeT was once again named in the March 3, 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore that left eight people dead. The attack was described by international media as an attempt to hijack the bus carrying the visiting team to demand in return the release of Lakhvi who is presently detained at the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.
Hizbul Mujahideen (HuM) led by Syed Salahuddin
The Hizbul Mujahideen (HuM) or the Party of Freedom Fighters, is considered to be the mother of ongoing militancy in the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. Led by a militant Sunni Muslim Yusuf Shah alias Pir Syed Salahuddin, the Hizb is politically mentored by the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan (JI) which describes Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part of Pakistan and stands for its integration with Pakistan.
Of the jehadi groups operating in Jammu and Kashmir, the Hizbul Mujahideen is the brand name of the Kashmir militancy because of being the largest and the most important in terms of its effectiveness in perpetrating violence across Kashmir. With a cadre base drawn from indigenous and foreign sources, the leadership of the Hizb had established contacts with many Afghan Mujahideen groups such as the Hizb-e-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, under which some of its cadre received arms training at camps in Afghanistan. Yet, its leadership has never identified itself with either al-Qaeda or the Taliban, unlike most of the Pakistani jehadi groups. The Rawalpindi based Commander of the Hizb, Syed Salahuddin has repeatedly denied any sort of links between his group and al-Qaeda or Taliban.
Unlike the other Kashmiri militant groups fighting in the Indian controlled state, the HuM exclusively operates in Jammu and Kashmir and has been held responsible for regular attacks against the Indian security forces since its inception in 1989. Many say the Hizb was actually formed to keep a check on the growing influence of the pro-Independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF).
The birth of the Hizb marked the first ideological division of the militancy in Kashmir -- the JKLF advocated complete independence of the State while the Hizbul favoured a merger with Pakistan, in line with the stated policy of the Jamaat-e-Islami. The US State Department included the Hizbul Mujahideen in its "Foreign Terrorist Organisations" list on May 1, 2003, a few days before the US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's visit to the subcontinent. The move came after the Hizbul Mujahideen leadership owned up to having acquired shoulder-firing Estrela surface-to-air missiles being used against the Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.
From IJAZ SYED
PPP – a party running in loss?
The Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), Pakistan’s largest political entity founded in 1967 by former Prime Minister (PM) Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, currently finds a double crisis. On the one hand the party faces a serious crisis of credibility among the masses that it represents and the second is a crisis of commitment, or lack of it, to the ideals that Bhutto and later his charismatic daughter Benazir Bhutto stood and struggled for. The image and the performance of the party is revolving around the personality and performance of it’s co-chairman and President, Asif Ali Zardari who “has no feel of the pulse of the people – he has become completely detached from reality and (is) living in a bunker” and “there is probably not much space there for making more mistakes,” Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, Pakistan’s prominent political commentator noted in a news item to The Age.[1] The news item said that Zardari’s approval rating was 19% in January 2009 against his predecessor, military dictator-president General (r) Musharraf’s 17%.
PPP’s brief background
Political circumstances surrounding the party: At a time when the socialist-led students movement was sweeping the world in the late 1960s, Bhutto’s populist manifesto galvanized people in the length and breadth of Pakistan, giving his party the second largest chunk of seats in the then parliament that comprised East and West Pakistan in 1970. The nationalist Awami League led by Sheikh Mujeebur Rehman from what is Bangladesh today had won the majority but Bhutto’s reluctance to share power with Rehman and the military president General Yahya Khan’s reservations on Rehman’s closeness with archrival India, resulted in a power struggle that stoked the already simmering separatist movement beyond control. Active support by the Indian intelligence agencies for the League’s militant wing Mukti Bahni and the eventual Indian invasion of East Pakistan led to the break up and resulted in the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country in December 1971 and the capitulation of over 90,000 Pakistani soldiers to the Indian army.
Bhutto rises to the occasion: The disgraced President, General Yahya Khan handed over power to Bhutto, who embarked on a painful journey of rubbing off the humiliation of defeat, reviving Pakistanis’ confidence, convening the national parliament and negotiating 90,000 prisoners out of the Indian captivity. Bhutto also successfully led the preparation and implementation of a consensus Constitution in 1973, under which he became the first elected PM of Pakistan, until General Ziaul Haq ousted him in July 1977. Bhutto was hanged in April 1979 after a controversial ruling by the Supreme Court, which had found him guilty of murdering a political opponent. From then on, his wife Nusrat Bhutto and daughter Benazir Bhutto took the reins of the party and waged a struggle that climaxed in December 1988 with Benazir Bhutto becoming the PM after winning the majority in the general elections. She also won a second term in October 1993. In the general elections on February 18, 2008, the PPP again secured a simple majority, probably riding on the wave of sympathy generated by the gruesome assassination of Benazir Bhutto minutes after an election rally in Rawalpindi on Dec 27, 2007.
Party becoming from stronger to weaker: Now, the PPPs’ journey from scratch in 1967 to four stints in power – one under Bhutto senior, two under daughter Benazir Bhutto and the current one practically under Asif Ali Zardari, Ms. Bhutto’s widower, is based on a legacy that Mr. Bhutto had left behind; Roti, Kapra Aur Makaan (bread, clothing, and shelter) was the slogan that touched hearts and minds and lives on even today. Through the socialist-style nationalization of industries and radical workers’ rights reforms, Bhutto also endeared himself with millions of workers in the industrial and agricultural sectors. Regardless of the disastrous impact that the nationalization had on Pakistan’s economy and politics in the years to come, millions of poor Pakistanis looked at Bhutto as someone who had given them dignity. That, in short, is why thousands endured rigorous jail terms, many immolated themselves and scores committed suicides to protest Bhutto’s execution. With the passage of time party’s vote bank has considerably shrunk, yet the PPP still prides itself as an entity that sits deep in the working class, probably because Bhutto senior had promised the common man what he yearns for the whole life; work, shelter and self-respect above all. Yet, since returning to power in March 2008, the PPP, led by President Zardari, seems to be on a drift away from the common man.
Plummeting ratings of the party & leadership: If approval ratings are indicative enough of the political trends in Pakistan, then no other government, in the recent political history of Pakistan, has slipped as sharply as Yousaf Raza Gillani-led PPP’s government has – 64% in June 2008 and 19% in December 2008.[2] Party’s co-chairman and President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari’s approval ratings also indicated the sharp decline on the basis of his perceived credibility by the people of Pakistan – 45% in June 2008 and 20% in December 2008. While his main political contender, Mian Nawaz Sharif’s approval ratings were 60% in December 2008.[3] According to a New York Times report in the last week of February 2009: “Mr. Sharif’s approval ratings outstripped Mr. Zardari’s by large margins.”[4] In an essay on the World Socialist Website, Zardari’s approval rating was noted as 13% against Nawaz Sharif’s 86%.[5] Zardari is also the Vice President of Socialist International, according the last paragraph of his official bio.[6]
Is PPP what its leadership is? As the party and its leadership face tumultuous political times, the party’s leadership took extremely unpopular decisions over the past one year that included it’s co-chairman’s backtracking from three written agreements with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), PPP’s then coalition partner in the Center and Punjab, mainly on the issue of restoration of judiciary to November 2, 2007’s position. Political agreements are “not like Quran or Hadith,” Zardari had said in August 2008 referring to the agreements that he had earlier inked with Nawaz Sharif.[7] Pakistan is an honor-based society and these words will haunt PPP for a long time with nothing in defense coming from the party.
President Zardari, who has become the face of the party and was unanimously chosen by the party as party’s co-chairman, also made himself unpopular with the powerful Pakistani establishment by issuing statements on key Pakistani issues including Kashmir and the nuclear doctrine.[8] In his inaugural address to the joint session of the Parliament, Zardari said that he would be the first ever president willing to “surrender” the presidential powers his predecessor military dictator President, General (r) Musharraf had accumulated under the 17th Constitutional Amendment that included the power to dismiss the government and dissolve the Parliament. Once in the office, Zardari did not move anything as he had promised and his close aides, including then Law Minister Farooq Hamid Naek, carved out an argument that the political parties in the National Assembly should bring in a “consensus bill” for the 18th Constitutional Amendment to reverse the powers back to the Parliament and Prime Minister.
Character assassination or reality? A Wall Street Journal story in February 2009 said that President Zardari continuously insulted the senior cabinet ministers and party leaders. These included former Information Minister, Sherry Rahman and former leader of the House in Senate, Senator Raza Rabbani. Sherry was called a “witch” and Rabbani “impotent.”[9] The spokesperson to the President, Farhatullah Babar rejected the story but the atmosphere prevails among the political observers that this could have been true. Later, both the leaders resigned from their political titles and Sherry was also removed unceremoniously from her party office of the Secretary Information. A hawkish Fauzia Wahab replaced her and in her first ever press conference as the Secretary Information demanded “self censorship” from the media.[10] Sherry’s removal did not promote the democratic credentials and the inside management of the party. It is commonly believed that Zardari’s inner circle of friends also play the role of his political aides and advisors. Most of them are hawks in key administrative positions with absolutely no or very-little political training. In the presence of these people, the larger view and input from the party workers, parliamentarians and leaders was simply ignored that pushed the party, its government and leadership deeper in the hole of unpopularity.
Party’s silence on a constitutional aberration: On the day of the oath-taking of the new 50 Senators on March 12, 2009, the copy of the constitution given to the House included the constitutional amendments that General (r) Musharraf had brought under his Emergency Order on November 3, 2007. Senator Ibrahim Khan, Jamaat-e-Islami, pointed to this fact as these were made the part of the Constitution without following the due parliamentary procedure but his concerns fell on the deaf ears. The oath was administered. The government and the party did not say anything and this was misnomer-ed as constitutional. Referring to the President, one of Pakistan’s leading commentators, Talat Masood said that Zardari was “destroying Bhutto’s legacy.”[11] It was PM Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, President Zardari’s hanged and politically-immortalized father in law who made the Constitution that all the political entities of Pakistan had mutually agreed on in 1973.
Issues that party-ranks failed to take the right-side on: Among a few others, the following make the most important issues which the party and its leadership should have stood on the right side:
1. Zardari’s agreements with Nawaz Sharif: These either shouldn’t have been inked or must have been adhered to. PPP’s late Chairperson, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto, also signed a political-policy document called, Charter of Democracy in May 2006; the present government should have respected its articles.
2. Reversal of the 17th Amendment to empower the Parliament: President Zardari should have kept his words to “surrender” his powers under the 17th Amendment.
3. Restoration of the judges: All the deposed judges, especially the Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, should have been restored as promised by late Benazir Bhutto and various other PPP leaders when they were in opposition. People of Pakistan got them restored, via the unprecedented non-violent Long March, in the wee hours of March 16 via an Executive Order of the Prime Minister. The lawyers and the opposition were demanding this action for over a year. Islamabad was completely sealed and according to news reports, containers around Islamabad were welded together so that they could not be moved as it happened in Lahore where a lifter kept removing them from the roads. Pakistan’s Army Chief also played an important role in “getting the deal done.” This is not interpreted as a good sign for Pakistan’s fledgling democracy. For Pakistan to become a democracy, “civilian leaders will be required to display a level of tact and competence that has not yet been evident.”[12] The competence level was exposed on the mismanagement of a political issue via administrative crackdown that gravely destabilized Pakistan on the occasion of Long March.
4. Imposition of the governor’s rule in Punjab: The party and its leadership totally failed in preventing what is termed as totally unnecessary, uncalled for and noted as an insult to the mandate of nearly 90 million people of the Punjab province. As of March 22, 2009, the hawks in the party have failed to “deliver Punjab.”
5. Expulsion of and issuance of a show-cause notice to Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan: Aitzaz is among the most senior politicians of Pakistan and the PPP. On February 17, 2009, the party leadership expelled him from the Central Executive Committee. He was also issued a show-cause notice by party’s Secretary General, Jehangir Badar.[13]
Late Benazir Bhutto’s political secretary, Nahid Khan, said on March 22, 2009, at the occasion of hoisting the Pakistani flag at the restored Chief Justice’s residence that: “PPP is a party of the people of Pakistan but I see that the gap between the leadership and people has increased. This needs to be bridged.” Nahid, her husband along with many other mainstream PPP leaders who once were close to late Benazir Bhutto are now pushed outside the arena and those are now ruling inside the party who are Zardari’s favorites.
A political party is being run in a non-political manner and silence prevails within.
References[1] http://www.theage.com.au/world/bungling-zardari-squanders-the-bhutto-legacy-20090320-94h3.html?page=-1. Last accessed on March 21, 2009.
[2] IRI surveys
[3] Ibid.
[4] NYT, February 25, 2009.
[5] http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jul2008/pak-j01.shtml. Last accessed on March 20, 2009.
[6] http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/default.aspx. Last accessed on March 22, 2009.
[7] Daily Times, August 24, 2008.
[8] President Zardari hinted at “some good news” by the end of this month in his press conference on September 9, 2008. And “We will most certainly not use it first,” in a video conference interview with Indian notables on November 22, 2008. “This is the first time that Pakistan has advocated the policy of no-first use of nuclear weapons,” India’s prestigious The Hindu’s front page read on November 23, 2008.
[9] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123561113179577559.html. Last accessed on March 18, 2009.
[10] Broadcasted live on TV channels on March 19, 2009.
[11] Ibid to # 2.
[12] The Idea of Pakistan by Stephen P. Cohen; page 278.
[13] PPP’s Secretary Information hinted that if Aitzaz would “appeal” to party leadership, he expulsion from the CEC might be reconsidered. The News, March 22, 2009.
Comments/remarks: pager@crss.pk
CRSS is not part of any political grouping or party and firmly adheres to academic as well as intellectual neutrality.
As you may have already heard Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney, has banned British MP George Galloway from entering Canada. In the last few days, Kenney unilaterally cut funding to the Canadian Arab Federation for its immigrant settlement programs. He also recently attacked students organizing Israeli Apartheid Week on campuses across Canada. We must all come together to organize against this blatant attack on freedom of expression. We have a right to criticize Israeli Apartheid policies and we will defend that right.
Defend free speech.
Let George Galloway into Canada.
Stop Jason Kenney's attacks on civil liberties.
1) Call to action to defend free speech
By now you will have heard that Jason Kenney, Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, has banned British MP George Galloway from entering Canada. Galloway is scheduled to speak in four cities during a pan-Canadian speaking tour from March 30 to April 2.
Kenney's decision to ban Galloway is an unprecedented attack on free speech and on the right to criticize our own government's foreign policy. Kenney's office has publicly stated that Galloway will be banned because of his views on the war in Afghanistan and because he represents a "threat to national security".
The ban follows Kenney's recent attacks on Canadian Arab and Muslim organizations and on Palestine solidarity campaigners for their criticism of Israel's war on Gaza and its treatment of Palestinians. In the last few days, Kenney unilaterally cut funding to the Canadian Arab Federation for its immigrant settlement program. Kenney also recently attacked students organizing Israeli Apartheid Week on campuses across Canada.
Kenney has attempted to silence their voices by accusing them of anti-Semitism, despite the wide range of support and participation of Jewish organizations and individuals in these Palestine solidarity events.
The organizers of Galloway's speaking tour the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, the Ottawa Peace Assembly, and Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights condemn in the strongest terms Kenney's attack on free speech and our right to criticize our government's foreign policy. We call on all supporters of civil liberties to join us in challenging these attacks and in reversing Kenney's ban.
In the next few days, we will launch a pan-Canadian campaign to defend free speech in Canada and to reverse Kenney's ban. We call on you to join in this campaign to ensure Galloway's entry into Canada. We must organize now to ensure that all events where Galloway is scheduled to speak will proceed as planned.
Supporters should continue to buy tickets for these events and to promote them widely.
To that end, we urge you to take the following steps:
1) Contact Jason Kenney's office to condemn the ban and to demand its immediate reversal:
E-mail: minister@cic.gc.ca; kennej@parl.gc.ca
Phone: 613-992-2235 (Ottawa office); 403-225-3480 (Calgary office)
Fax: 613-992-1920 (Ottawa office); 403-225-3504 (Calgary office)
2) Join an emergency city-wide organizing meeting in Toronto to defend free speech and to reverse the ban:
Sunday, March 22
3:00pm to 5:00pm
Ryerson Student Centre 55 Gould Street Ryerson University
This organizing meeting will take place during the closing session of the Student Assembly against War and Racism, scheduled to take place from Friday, March 20 to Sunday, March 22 in the same location (www.unitedagainstwar.ca). Anti-war delegates from across the country will be present to participate in developing a pan-Canadian campaign to defend free speech and to reverse the ban on Galloway.
3) Are you on facebook? Join the facebook group: Let Him Speak: Allow George Galloway to Speak in Canada: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=62965075809
4) Buy tickets for the Galloway events in Toronto, Mississauga, Montreal and Ottawa.
Help us promote these events. Spread the word widely. Ticket information for each city is available at www.nowar.ca and www.acp-cpa.ca.
5) Forward this e-mail across all your lists to build the biggest response possible.
If Kenney does not reverse his ban, a delegation of Canadian MPs, lawyers, peace campaigners, and civil liberties advocates will travel to the US to escort Galloway across the border on the day of his scheduled arrival to Canada.
We will join with Galloway in publicly defying Kenney's attack on free speech, civil liberties and the peace movement.
Please spread the word about Sunday's meeting. If you are outside Toronto and would like to get involved, please contact us:
Email: stopthewar@sympatico.ca
Web: www.nowar.ca or www.acp-cpa.ca
Campaign materials will be ready following Sunday's organizing meeting in Toronto for local organizers to distribute across the country.
Together, we will defend free speech and civil liberties.
And one way or another, we will bring George Galloway to Canada!
Thank you for your ongoing support.
In peace,
Toronto Coalition to Stop the War
Ottawa Peace Coalition
Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights
2) Statement by George Galloway MP on Jason Kenney's ban
March 20, 2009
The Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney gazetted in Rupert Murdoch's Sun yesterday morning that I was to be excluded from his country because of my views on Afghanistan. That's the way the right-wing last-ditch dead-enders of Bushism in Ottawa conduct their business. At least for now. The upcoming elections in the country look set to follow the trend set by their neighbour to the south.
Kenney is quite a card almost a joker in fact. A quick trawl establishes he's a gay-baiter, gung-ho armchair warrior, with an odd habit of exceeding his immigration brief. Three years ago he attacked the pro-Western prime minister of Lebanon Fuad Saniora for being ungrateful to Canada for its support of Israeli bombardment of his country. Most curiously of all in 2006 he addressed a rally of the so called People's Mujahideen of Iran, a Waco-style cult, banned in the European Union as a terrorist organization with a penchant for encouraging impressionable young members to self-immolate in public places.
While on one level being banned by such a man is like being told to sit up straight by the hunchback of Notre Dame or being lectured on due diligence by Lord Conrad Black a Kenney ally, now breaking stones in the hot sun. On another, and personal, note for a Scotsman to be excluded from Canada is like being turned away from the family home.
But what are my views on Afghanistan which the Canadian government (for we must assume cabinet responsibility) does not want its people to hear?
I've never been to Afghanistan, nor have I ever met a Taliban, but my first impression into the parliamentary vellum on the subject was more than two decades ago. At the time the fathers of the Taliban were "freedom fighters" paraded at US Republican and British Tory party conferences. Who knows, maybe even the Canadian right extolled these god-fearing opponents of Communism. I did not however.
On the eve of their storming of Kabul I told Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that she "had opened the gates to the barbarians" and that "a long, dark night would now descend upon the people of Afghanistan". How long and how dark, as George Bush might have put it, I misunderestimated.
But with the same conviction I say to the Canadian and other NATO governments today that your current policy is equally a profound mistake. From time to time and with increased regularity it is a crime. Like the bombardment of wedding parties and even funerals or the presiding over a record opium crop which under our noses finds its way coursing through the veins of young people from Nova Scotia to Newcastle upon Tyne. But it is worse than a crime, as Tallyrand said, it's a blunder.
The Afghans have never succumbed to foreign occupation, heaven knows the British Empire tried, tried and failed again. Not even Alexander the Great succeeded, and whoever else he is, minister Kenney is no Alexander the Great. Young Canadian soldiers are dying in significant numbers on Afghanistan¹s plains. Their families are entitled to know how many of us believe this adventure to be similarly doomed and that genuine support for the troops British, Canadian and other means bringing them home, changing course and that an alternative policy exists, the debate around which they above all deserve to hear and judge for themselves.
For a G7 government to ban a five times elected British parliamentarian from addressing public events or keeping my appointment with some of their flagship television and radio programmes is quite a serious matter. Few would have guessed that the kinder, gentler Canada of Jonie Mitchell's lyricism would have been the villain of such a piece. Canada's conservatives have certainly paved free speech and put up a parody of liberty.
Minister Kenney's "spokesman" says in his gazette, otherwise known as the Sun, "Galloway's not coming inŠ end of story."
Alas for him, it's not. Canada remains a free country governed by law and my friends are even now seeking a judicial review of his decision. The Canadian people will speak soon about the whole conduct of the war and the economy by the neo-con administration he graces. And above all there are other ways I can address those Canadians who wish to hear me greater in number now and including those who positively disagree with what I have to say.
More than half a century ago Paul Robeson, one of the greatest men who ever lived, was forbidden to enter Canada not by Ottawa but by Washington, which had taken away his passport. But he was still able to transfix a vast crowd of Vancouver's mill hands and miners with a 17 minute telephone concert culminating in a rendition of the Ballad of Joe Hill.
Technology has moved on since then. And so from coast to coast, minister Kenney notwithstanding, I will be heard one way or another.
George Galloway MP
WALL STREET NYC
CONFRONT THE BANKERS WHEN WALL STREET IS OPEN
FRIDAY, APRIL 3 continuing to April 4
* BAILOUT THE PEOPLE-NOT THE BANKS!
* TRILLIONS HAVE BEEN HANDED TO THE BANKERS — WHILE THE PEOPLE GET PENNIES!
* LET’S TURN IT AROUND -- STOP BUSINESS AS USUAL!
Volunteers & Funds needed. If you can come to New York before April 3 to help mobilize, please call 212-633-6646.
Go to the Bailout the People Movement website and get information on how you can volunteer or endorse the March on Wall Street or for transportation from your area - www.BailoutPeople.org
BALTIMORE
Sunday, March 22
STOP THE WAR ON THE WORKERS & THE POOR STOP FORECLOSURES & EVICTIONS
The people of Baltimore have won a resounding victory when City Council members introduced a bill that would require a 365 day notice before foreclosed home owners can be evicted. But now the banks are doing everything possible to stop the passage of this precedent setting bill. You can help stop the bankers from killing the bill!
The Network to Stop Foreclosures and the Bailout the People Movement are calling on anti-war activists to come to Baltimore on Sunday following the Washington D.C. protest to mobilize to stop foreclosures and evictions. A crucial City Council hearing will be held on Tuesday, March 24. It needs to be packed with people and you can help make it possible.
Bring your energy! Be a part of community outreach brigades! Housing provided.
Call 410-218-4835 or email apcbaltimore@pipeline.com
FROM WASHINGTON D.C. – TO BALTIMORE – TO WALL STREET
WASHINGTON D.C.
Saturday, March 21
ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRAQ WAR—
MARCH ON THE PENTAGON
March to stop the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. Bring the troops home now!
Join the Bailout the People Movement in Washington D.C. Look for our banners on that day or for more information call our national office at 212-633-6646. See our website: www.BailoutPeople.org
Be Part of a Global Condemnation of "Corrective" Rape of Lesbians in South Africa
A new ActionAid report describes the chilling rise of "corrective" rape in South Africa - in which South African lesbians are being raped in an effort to "cure" them of their sexual orientation.
This shocking act of sexual violence must also be considered a hate crime
Support groups in Cape Town say they see 10 new cases of "corrective" rape every week. And it's even more widespread around the rest of the country.
Many perpetrators of rape already go unpunished in South Africa, but the situation is even worse for lesbian women. Indeed, 31 lesbian women have been murdered in homophobic attacks since 1998, but in only one of these cases has there been a conviction.
Although South Africa's constitution recognizes rights of gay and lesbian people, its legal system does not view crimes committed against gay and lesbians on the basis of sexual orientation to be hate crimes. The South African legal system must recognize "corrective" rape as a hate crime in addition to a rape in order to establish a greater punishment for this brutal and widespread crime.
Urge South African President Kgalema Motlanthe to deem "corrective" rape a hate crime!
Thank you,
LiAnna, Care2 and The Petition Site Team
WASHINGTON, March 16
PRNewswire-USNewswire
It is with great pain that the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community confirms that two of its members were brutally murdered in Multan yesterday. The deceased, Dr Shiraz Ahmad Bajwa and Dr Noreen Bajwa were husband and wife and were both trained as doctors. Both martyrs were under the age of forty. Yesterday at around 2.30pm local time, unknown assailants attacked Dr Shiraz and Dr Noreen at their home in Wapda Colony, Multan Road. The assailants first taped together the hands, feet and mouths of both victims. They then tied rope around their necks and strangled them to death. Following death Dr Shiraz was hung from a nearby fan.
The brutality of these murders was further exacerbated by the fact that Dr Shiraz and Dr Noreen were expecting their first child.
Dr Shiraz was an eye-specialist who had served at various hospitals including the Fazl-e-Umer Hospital in Rabwah. At the time of his death he was working at a hospital in Wapda. Similarly Dr Noreen was working at a local children's hospital.
What occurred in Multan yesterday was an act of such cruelty that it can never be comprehended by decent and peace loving people. Dr Shiraz and Dr Noreen had been married for just three years and were expecting their first child together. They had both chosen career paths which allowed them to serve their fellow men, women and children.
Pakistan is a country that is currently facing absolute ruin. Amongst this chaos the hateful acts of religious extremists are ever increasing, to the extent that loving, caring and innocent people are being murdered because they belong to a community whose motto is "Love for All, Hatred for None." The International Community, Media and Human Rights organizations are all urged to take action to protect the lives and rights of Ahmadi Muslims both in Pakistan and in other countries where they face discrimination. In an era where freedom of religion and belief is accepted as a basic human right throughout the world it is of disbelief that Ahmadi Muslims are being murdered for no other reason than their choice of religion.
Further info: Zinda M Bajwa Secretary Public Affairs USA (646) 498-8960
SOURCE Ahmadiyya Muslim Community US
CMKP Digest 1789The restoration will be the best tribute to a large number of lawyers, human and civil rights’ activists, trade unionists, and several political parties. The final push came from Nawaz Sharif, the former Prime Minister, who had decided to join the lawyers’ protest march that had been set for March 16 at Islamabad. Sharif’s decision was apparently also influenced by a Supreme Court ruling that barred him and his younger brother from holding public offices on February 25, followed by the Governor’s Rule that President Asif Zardari imposed in the politically most influential province Punjab, Sharif’s stronghold.
People’s seven achievements: Regardless of the eventual package of outcomes in the weeks and months ahead, the movement, led by barrister Aitzaz Ahsan and his colleagues Munir Malik, Ali Ahmed Kurd, Lateef Afridi, Athar Minallah, Justice (r) Tariq, Hammid Khan and several other selfless advocates, achieved several milestones for a country that is currently embroiled in many conflicts, the most important of them being the consequences of the US-led questionable war against terrorism.
First, if all goes well, Justice Chaudhry and several other judges will resume their duties on March 21. Quite a contrast to the past; in the previous instances, consigning dissenting judges to the dustbin of history was an automatic consequence of the coups. In the latest unprecedented episode, the rebel judges will honorably get back to their offices.
Second, the successful pressure brought upon President Zardari, who had until late March 15 ruled out judges’ restoration, demonstrated political pluralism in the country, whereby lawyers, the civil society and several political parties including the Pakistan Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif stood united all through on a single issue i.e. restoration of judges. During all this time, Sharif and Ahsan kept arguing that this issue symbolized the struggle between the supporters of the rule of law and an independent judiciary on the one hand, and those who dismissed this as a “petty issue being kicked up for the sake of a few individuals.” “I am not asking for my Punjab government or revoking my disqualification verdict, I am only to restore the independent judiciary that a dictator, General (r) Musharraf, had illegally and unconstitutionally sacked on November 3, 2007,” Sharif has been saying.
Third, an all-powerful President is likely to be an indirect casualty of the victorious march that had mobilized tens of thousands of people all over Pakistan and had raised the specter of a bloody stand-off between the marchers and the administration in Islamabad. President in Pakistan symbolizes the State power that usually and routinely has been used to crush the social dissent and victimize the masses instead of being an arm to benefit the citizens. This was the first ever most serious and direct challenge posed to any Pakistani president – and the people of Pakistan won. Zardari’s concession i.e. allowing the reinstatement of judges essentially means the weakening of a powerful and democratically elected president whose bid for absolute power through the direct rule in Punjab turned out to be a political death-knell for him. Within six months of his elevation to the country’s most powerful office, Zardari lost vital support both within and outside the country because of his rush for absolute power. The President’s desire to grab absolute-power has manifested itself in more than one ways and latest of them is the election of Farooq Naek, President’s legal-eagle, as the Chairman, Senate of Pakistan.
Fourth, Sharif, once considered a wobbly and whimsical politician, has rehabilitated himself as a populist leader by agitating on a single-point agenda. He declared the cause of an independent judiciary as a “sacred mission so crucial for the future of Pakistan.” Sharif had returned home in November 2007, from his almost eight year old Saudi Arabian exile and successfully undertook to establish himself as a leader who wants to put “Pakistan on the path of constitutionalism and economic prosperity with sincerity and commitment.”
Fifth, the latest conflict and its positive fall out in favor of the ousted judges underscores a diffusion of power centers in Pakistan’s turbulent politics; while it has taken the movement for civil liberties and constitutionalism to new levels and injected confidence nationwide, the outcome also underlined the erosion of the traditional power structures symbolized by the feudal ruling elite and conventional politicians many of whom owed their presence and rise to the mighty military establishment. Between Oct 1958, the first military coup, and Aug 2008, when another coup-maker resigned, three generals - Ayub Khan (10 years), Ziaul Haq (11 years) and Pervez Musharraf (9 years) - exemplified the autocratic rule the military establishment imposed on this country. Each time, though, the long military rule left deep and indelible marks on the institution itself because with it came a new breed of self-serving and hypocritical breed of sycophants, mostly politicians and bureaucrats. “The March Revolution,” as most have started calling it, hasn’t caused any major shake-up in the government. Yet, Pakistan has its first ever “Justice Revolution.”
The sixth achievement of Pakistan’s struggling democracy revolves around the role of the lawyers; when the Supreme Court Bar Association, a body that represents senior advocates from all over the country, and its affiliates in the four provinces, embarked on the mission of reversing Justice Chaudhry’s suspension by General Musharraf on March 9, 2007, nobody had ever dreamed of achieving the objective. A relentless campaign at home and abroad kept the heat of the movement up and eventually the lawyers achieved that stands unparalleled in Pakistan’s history. Political support of course provided the adrenaline that they had needed but the foundation was set by the lawyers’ community all across the nation that spoke with one voice on one point agenda of the reversal of unconstitutional steps of Gen. (r) Musharraf on November 3, 2007.
Last, the electronic media emerged as another player in the power structure. Both the government as well as the non-government remained under the sharp lenses of private TV channels. On the spot reporting, leaks from well-meaning government officials, instant analysis and dissection of impending moves and interactive programming kept the government in particular on the defensive, while the opposition and the lawyers optimally used the several TV windows available to them. Despite being on the receiving end by some of the mainstream channels, the government did not dare go beyond a brief indirect crackdown, and thus the flow of audio-video information kept pouring into households and shopping centers. Even Musharraf had tried to muzzle the electronic media after imposing emergency on Nov 3, 2007, but most of the channels were allowed back on air after a string of criticism and protests all over the country.Army’s democratic credentials: Ironic indeed but during the night of the 15th and the 16th, Pakistan’s military actually played an important role in Pakistan’s democratic evolution; it was the Chief of the Army Staff who brought Pakistan’s warring democrats to sit across-the-table and agree on a compromise. While March 16 may symbolize the victory for the rule of law, the long and arduous journey to constitutionalism, parliamentary supremacy, the war against radicalization, and economic progress has just begun. Whether the nation achieves all that its leaders would plan for it but one thing is clear: Pakistani nation has emerged stronger and can now hope for better days with multiple centers of power, including media and civil society, on its side.
In fact, Pakistan’s Justice Revolution has just begun. (CRSS is not part of any political grouping or party and firmly adheres to academic as well as intellectual neutrality.)Read an Urdu poem titled 'Peoples' Declaration-1' on Pakistan's current situation.
عوامی فرمان
کسی پاگل کو صدارت نہیں کرنے دیں گے کسی غاصب کو حکومت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
جن کو آتا ہی نہیں کچھ بھی کرپشن کے سوا اُن کو ہم لوگ سیاست نہیں کرنے دیں گے
مسندِ عدل کو ویراں نہیں ہونے دیں گے کسی بندر کو عدالت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
منتظم، غور سے پڑھ لیں یہ عوامی فرمان لوگ اب اُن کو نظامت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
مارشل لا کا جو کُتّا ہے ، نہ کھُلنے پائے وردی والو ، یہ حماقت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
وہ جو رشوت پہ پلا، نارِ جہنم میں جلا اُس کو ہم دیں کی نیابت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
عیش و عشرت کرو تم ،لوگ مریں فاقوں سے اب تمہں ایسی رذالت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
ہاتھ غاصب کے گریبان تلک پہنچیں گے احتسابوں میں رعایت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
ہو گئے مُلک پہ قابض جو تشدد کے امام اُن کو ملت کی امامت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
وہ جو مکروہ قدم اُترا ہے شیطان ملک اُس کو ہم گھر کی وزارت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
سب مسلمانوں کی مشترکہ امانت ہے وطن اِس امانت میں خیانت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
وہ جو بھٹو کی جماعت تھی،وہ تاریخ ہے اب ہم تمہیں اس کی وکالت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
تم مسلط کرو کل، لا کے بلاول ہم پر ہم تمہیں ایسی جسارت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
چھین لیتے ہیں جو ہاتھوں سے نوالے مسعود اُن کو اب ایسی خُباثت نہیں کرنے دیں گے
Sri Lanka Island Newspaper, March 16, 2009
DUPLICITOUS ALLY’S RADICAL OFFICER CORPS THE PROBLEM . . . Obama must focus on Pakistan, not Afghanistan!
by Selvam Canagaratna
"The author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death." - Thomas Paine, The American Crisis (1783)
Hard on the heels of the brazen March 3rd terrorist attack on the bus carrying Sri Lanka’s cricket team in the eastern Pakistan city of Lahore, Christopher Dell, the top US diplomat in Kabul warned that Pakistan posed a bigger security problem for the rest of the world than Afghanistan - a point already made, and made very effectively too, in a February 12 contribution to CounterPunch magazine by Peter Lee, a businessman who has spent thirty years observing, analyzing, and writing on Asian affairs.
The American diplomat claimed to have ‘discovered’ what most political observers have known for quite awhile – that "Pakistan has certainly made radical Islam a part of its political life, and it now seems to be a deeply ingrained element of its political culture." [‘Discovering’ what they have themselves secretly ‘fathered’ is, by the way, an American forte.]
"Maybe it’s time to admit we don’t have an Afghanistan problem. We have a Pakistan problem, and Afghanistan is simply aggravating it," was how Peter Lee began his article on February 12, hitting the proverbial nail on its nut.
The war against the Taliban is a counterinsurgency operation across the entire Pashtun ethnic area, noted Lee, and was on both sides of the Durand Line that arbitrarily splits the Pashtun homeland into Afghan and Pakistani jurisdictions; the Taliban soon discovered that their key bulwark against NATO and US operations was, unsurprisingly, the Pakistan side.
Wrote Lee: "US attempts to deny the Pakistan havens to the Taliban have simply encouraged the Taliban to focus on the weakest element in the counter-insurgency equation, the Pakistan government, entrench themselves not only in the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) but also in key districts of the North West Frontier Province such as the Swat valley, and make it clear that the cost of any US success against them and in Afghanistan will be borne by Pakistan. In other words, Afghanistan is the sideshow and Pakistan is the main event."
As befitting a playwright, essayist and humorist, Wajahat Ali, a Muslim American of Pakistani descent, writing also in CounterPunch a few days after the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan team, penned a beguiling comparison to kick off his article: "The tempestuous relationship between the United States and Pakistan is akin to a sordid soap opera featuring a fickle, selfish lover and her unpredictable mistress prone to volatile tantrums. The ensuing violence and instability paralyzing Central Asia is their inevitable progeny." [DNA tests are clearly superfluous here!]
Surprisingly, President Obama, considering his total rejection throughout his presidential campaign of Bush’s hawkish approach to foreign policy, donned the belligerent mantle of his predecessor without a murmur but, having himself authorized two [or more] controversial CIA predator drone attacks in Pakistan’s mountainous region bordering Afghanistan up to end-February, recently conceded: "We’ve been thinking very militarily, but we haven’t been as effective in thinking diplomatically – we haven’t been thinking effectively around the development side of the equation." [While successfully ‘eliminating’ between 11 and 20 high-profile Taliban militants, the drones also notched up unacceptable ‘collateral damage’ in killing hundreds of innocent Pakistani civilian men, women and children.]
What has inflamed Pakistani public opinion was that the Predator drones raining death and destruction on blameless citizens are, in fact, flown from US military bases in Pakistan itself – a fact recently revealed by California Senator Dianne Feinstein. Wajahat Ali, himself also an Attorney-at-law, quotes a professional colleague telling him that the prevailing attitude among Pakistanis was that their government was either a complete ghulam (servant) of the US or a toothless, complicit partner, since "the road to Islamabad leads to the White House".
That ‘road’ was constructed jointly by the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) during the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s which, in terms of American money and materiel, was a boon for the Pakistani army, especially the ISI.
"America funded and supported the dictatorship of General Zia ul Haq, whose ‘Islamisation’ period nurtured the proliferation of radical Islamic madrassas and trained the mujahideen soldiers – future Taliban and al-Qaida members – to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan," says Brian M. Downing, a veteran of the Vietnam War and author of several works of political and military history.
At the time of the 1979 Soviet invasion, the army was ruling Pakistan after overthrowing and eventually executing Ali Bhutto. The US and Saudi Arabia poured money into Pakistan to aid the various mujahadin groups fighting just to the north, most of whom could readily be considered Islamist. Notes Downing: "The supply effort was entrusted to a section of the military – the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). In order to inspire new recruits for the war in Afghanistan (and for the struggle over Kashmir and revanchism over the loss of East Pakistan) madrasas were funded. Along the way, the ISI became a state within a state, an army within an army, a praetorian guard within a praetorian guard."
The British colonial army of the subcontinent was drawn predominantly from the Punjab, a region that became part of Pakistan upon independence, explains Downing. From that point on, the Pakistani army was more unified and capable of concerted action than were the political parties. "Seeing itself as embodying the nation far more than they did, the army would push aside civilian governments and take the reins of power when it saw fit. There’s no edifying morality play here. Pakistan’s political parties are corrupt, oligarchic patronage networks."
Pakistan is of diminishing usefulness to US/NATO efforts in Afghanistan, in Downing’s opinion, and its army and ISI are no longer able to govern the country or even hold it together – and neither can the newly installed civilian government. A reasonable interpretation of recent events, he reckons, is that the military helped assassinate Benazir Bhutto in December 2007 in order to prevent the accession of a popular civilian government, and that it increased guerrilla operations in Kashmir last summer and aided in the Mumbai attacks of November 2008 in order to rally Islamist militants to the nationalist, anti-Indian cause.
"The Pakistani army’s encouragement of Islamism brought the militant faithful into the officer corps, as they were thought more dedicated to confronting India than those with more moderate religiosity. Islamist militants are all but dominant in the officer corps now, even in the ranks of those who will control the general staff in a few years. The generals have brought Pakistan to the edge of the abyss. The protégées they took in, nurtured, and promoted may be the ones to push the country in, making the Pakistani generals the most recent losers in the Great Game, which has never had a long-term winner."
William Pfaff, writing on the Truthdig website, demanded to know, "Exactly what do we think we are doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Is it that we actually want permanent bases in Afghanistan? Do we want a permanent American client-state there, such as Iran was for us before the 1979 revolution, or as Iraq was at the time of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein was our man in the Middle East? Do we seriously want to crush Taliban religious belief and liberalize Islam? To send American clergymen, social reformers and feminist scholars there for a series of seminars? To run a new Inquisition at gunpoint, American-style?"
America calls it Democracy at gunpoint, William.
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