[sacw] sacw dispatch (8 Oct. 1999)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch (in association with South Asians Against
Nukes)
8 October 1999
-----------------------------------------------------
#1. A Recipe For Unending Pak-India Nuclear Competition
#2. Saying goodbye to Taliban? [In Pakistan]
#3. Bangladeshis protest against honour killings in Pakistan
#4. Lanka shelves rights bill amid protest
#5. Hindu militants confident of building temple at Babri Mosque site
-----------------------------------------------------
#1.
A RECIPE FOR UNENDING PAK-INDIA NUCLEAR COMPETITION

By Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy

The Indian Nuclear Draft Doctrine, released on August 17,
has evoked a strong reaction (The News, Oct 5) from three of
Pakistan's most distinguished, hard-line commentators on
nuclear issues. Retired ambassadors Agha Shahi and Abdul
Sattar, and retired Air Marshal Zulfiqar Ali Khan (SSK for
brevity), have stridently criticized the Pakistan
governments' response as weak, inadequate, and amounting to
little more than futile denunciations. Instead, they say,
Pakistan must now go full steam in beefing up its nuclear
forces with more and better types of bombs and missiles,
start deployment, and immediately increase defence spending
on both nuclear and conventional forces.

These authors, as well as many other ardent exponents of
Pakistan's nuclearization, have obviously been greatly
agitated by the Draft Doctrine. While this is scarcely
surprising, it simply proves for the hundredth time or more
that independent thinking on foreign and defence policies
has virtually ceased to exist, and there is little capacity
to think of the wider, long-term interests of Pakistan and
its people. Reactions to the Draft Doctrine once again
underscore that Pakistan's posture and policies are often
little more than simple, spasmodic, knee-jerk reactions to
an agenda set in New Delhi.

While SSK have chosen to title their article "Securing
Nuclear Peace", in fact what they recommend is a rapid
descent into a bottomless nuclear abyss. Following their
recommendations will mean that Pakistan's future will hold
nothing but futile strife and unending misery for its
people.

But let us first have a look at the Indian Nuclear Draft
Doctrine. It is evil in intent and hypocritical. Starting
with a preamble that nuclear weapons are "the gravest threat
to humanity", it nevertheless concludes that India needs
"sufficient, survivable and operationally prepared nuclear
forces" together with "the will to employ nuclear forces and
weapons". It speaks of a triad of aircraft, mobile
land-based missiles and sea-based assets, and requires
survivability of the forces through a combination of
multiple redundant systems, mobility, dispersion and
deception. In a clear departure from the late General
Sunderji's ideas of a fixed number of weapons, there is no
specification of what minimum deterrence or flexible
response might mean.

Coming in the wake of Kargil, and released just before the
Indian elections, the Doctrine beckons at Pakistan to
respond in kind. While there are excellent reasons for
Pakistan not to cooperate, SSK and others appear eager to
oblige. These authors make four main points in their essay.

First, SSK state that for each one of Pakistan's' nuclear
weapons that becomes vulnerable to Indian preemption, a rule
of thumb says that we must have at least one more. But
estimates of vulnerability are always highly subjective and
it is easy to create imaginary fears about an adversary's
capabilities. At the extreme it is even possible to argue
that all of our weapons are at risk. Therefore SSK are
essentially calling for an open-ended nuclear competition
with India. This is in marked contrast with numerous
statements made in earlier years by these gentlemen, as well
as other nuclear advocates, claiming that possession of just
a handful of weapons would be sufficient to guarantee
security in perpetuity. Number racing was dismissed then as
a spurious and unfounded objection made by ignorant and
pessimistic people. Unfortunately, the ignoramuses are being
proved correct today.

Second, SSK welcome the induction of mobile nuclear-tipped
missiles into the Pakistani arsenal and say that "a high
state of alert" will be perpetually required as India
proceeds with its deployments. They do show some small signs
of worry at the possibility of accidental or unauthorized
launch of these missiles, and the short flying-time, but
believe that these are mere technical problems that can be
solved if other "more experienced" nuclear states help us
set up a command and control system. Unfortunately, there is
absolutely no basis for this optimism, even if some friendly
country were to help Pakistan or India.

The problem of a safe but effective command and control
system is not just hard to solve, the laws of physics deem
that it is impossible. Whether for Pakistan or India, the
impossibility comes about because one has two conflicting,
directly contradictory requirements. One requirement is the
need to assure survivability by dispersing the missiles and
their command as widely as possible, and the other is to
exclude the possibility of unauthorized missile launches.
You can have either survivability OR safety, but you cannot
have both.

Dispersal as the key to survivability is easy to understand:
a single bomb on the Rawalpindi JCSC or GHQ would knock out
Pakistan's ability to mount a retaliatory strike if all
launch authority is centralized there. Even if this, or
perhaps some other command and control centre, were somehow
fortified to survive a nuclear blast in the vicinity, the
electromagnetic pulse which accompanies a nuclear blast
would destroy all normal telecommunications. Hence autonomy
of dispersed mobile missile units is an inescapable
requirement for maintaining a credible, survivable
deterrent. For this to be meaningful, each unit must
necessarily be provided the necessary authorization codes
for arming and launching the nuclear weapons in its
possession.

The paradox is that dispersal of authority, while it
enhances survivability of the arsenal, correspondingly
increases the probability of unauthorized launch from a
mobile missile unit. The reason could possibly be wrong or
deliberately falsified information, or perhaps simple
adventurism. The need to make split-second decisions, and
the possibility of losing contact with the nuclear control
headquarters, almost certainly means that the final launch
authority may have to be vested with a unit commander and
not the headquarters. This commander would probably be
someone at the level of a brigadier. Ultimately it could be
him, and not the prime minister or COAS/JCSC, who would make
the fateful decision.

While one has confidence that strict screening of such
commanders will be required, it takes only one ideologically
charged person who may decide to take destiny into his own
hands. Kargil certainly left open a number of questions
about who had authorized that particular initiative,
questions that shall probably never be truthfully answered.
But if a nuclear initiative is ever taken, the question of
responsibility will be quite irrelevant. I stress here that
these considerations equally apply to India.

Third, SSK reassure us that "the US-USSR paradigm has no
relevance for us". More specifically, in their opinion, the
USSR fell to pieces not because of over-spending on defence
but because of bad governance. Hence they conclude that
Pakistan can afford to pursue an accelerated nuclear and
conventional weapons program but first "the nation will have
to get rid of incompetent and dishonest rulers". It would
appear from this that SSK do not think too highly of our
present rulers. It also appears that they have some magical
way to make a radical break with 5 decades of history. Sadly
on this matter they have chosen not to share with us their
wisdom.

I do not wish to debate SSK on whether Pakistan can "afford"
more defence spending. There are plenty of perfectly boring
figures about literacy, infant mortality, children out of
school, access to clean drinking water, levels of pollution,
nutrition per capita, and so forth. None of this is of the
slightest concern to people like us who read English
newspapers in Pakistan, have flush toilets, and worry about
gaining excessive weight. Higher education is only slightly
harder to dismiss. The Atlantique naval aircraft shot down
by India, for which we are claiming $60 million in damages,
was worth enough to run all of Pakistan's state universities
for a period of nearly 2 years. Not surprisingly we have no
real universities in Pakistan.

Fourthly, SSK claim that there were four historical episodes
where Pakistani nuclear weapons prevented an Indian attack.
The first in the mid-80's, the second at the time of the
Brasstacks exercise in 1987, the third in May 1990, and the
fourth during the Kargil crisis. Much has been written about
the first three alleged instances of deterrence, and the
decisive weight of academic opinion is that nuclear weapons
played no role in those crises. Kargil, which followed the
May 1998 tests by India and Pakistan, was different.

In Kargil, Pakistan's nuclear weapons quite probably
deterred India from crossing the international border. But
it was the confidence derived from these nuclear weapons
that had emboldened elements within Pakistan to conceive an
initiative which otherwise they would not have taken.
Plainly stated, nuclear weapons caused Kargil; without
nuclear weapons Kargil would not have occured. However, as
it turned out, the aftermath left international fury
focussed upon Pakistan and inflicted severe humiliation upon
it.

How then should Pakistan respond to the Indian Draft
Doctrine? Recognizing that it was designed with an obvious
election purpose, that it is not yet a part of official
government policy, and that it was expressly designed to
provoke, one should refrain from excessive action or
comment. To draw Pakistan into open-ended racing would be a
matter of delight for nuclear hawks in India such as
K.S.Subramaniam who, responding to a question about
Pakistan's possible reaction on the Draft Doctrine said,
"what race? The faster they run the quicker they'll
collapse".

Pakistan needs an independent defence policy, one that is
not dictated and determined by India but by our national
needs. The country must shake itself out of the post-Kargil
depression and become aware of the real threats to its
security--the unremitting carnage of Shia-Sunni violence, a
collapsing economy, and growing tensions between the Centre
and Sindh. On the nuclear front, Pakistan must once again
seize the diplomatic initiative that has been so important
to it in the past. But it can do so only if it is perceived
by the international community as being sincere in working
towards nuclear accommodation with India. Therefore, it will
be necessary for Pakistan to take some form of meaningful
unilateral action. This action could, for example, be
signing the CTBT before India does.

Together with this initiative, Pakistan could seriously work
to assuage concerns that it seeks to export nuclear weapons
technology to other countries. By agreeing to the inspection
of all nuclear exports, and pledging not to transfer nuclear
weapons related information, it would show itself as a
responsible country genuinely concerned with limiting the
spread of nuclear weapons. Ratifying these declarations and
signing the CTBT would not harm Pakistan's security
interests.

The author is professor of physics at Quaid-e-Azam
University, Islamabad.
-----------------------------------
#2.

The Friday Times
October 8-14, 1999

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/news2.ht

SAYING GOODBYE TO TALIBAN?

Khaled Ahmed examines the latest Pakistani stance that sectarian carnage in
Pakistan is being exported from Afghanistan

On 5 October 1999, Chief Minister Punjab Shehbaz Sharif alleged for the
first time that terrorists who killed shias in Pakistan in the previous
week had come from Afghanistan. He stated that the terrorist group called
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi led by Riaz Basra was active in a neighbouring country
(read Afghanistan) since 1997 and asked the government of the 'country in
question' to hand over the culprits.
The chief minister's revelation about the Taliban involvement
'added' to the earlier statement by federal Interior Minister Chaudhary
Shujaat which had steered clear of naming anyone in Afghanistan. He implied
that the Sipah-e-Sahaba chief Azam Tariq had not kept his word after being
released from jail. Shehbaz Sharif was personally responsible for putting
down sectarianism in Punjab for the past year and was obviously upset by
its revival in his own province and in Sindh and NWFP.
After the August 1999 statement of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in
the Defence Committee of the Cabinet expressing his dissatisfaction with
the Afghan policy, this is the first clear signal of change in policy
towards the Taliban government. It adds Pakistan to the list of 'objecting'
states. Before this, Saudi Arabia had unsuccessfully pressured Mullah Umar
to hand over Osama bin Laden to it. Since UAE follows the Saudi lead one
can infer that all the countries that recognise the Taliban government are
now alienated from it.
The international reaction against the Qandahar leadership has thus
become reinforced. The United States and the European Union have been the
major 'objectors'. Washington wants the Taliban to surrender Osama bin
Laden who has declared war against the United States. The US claims it has
proof of terrorism against him. The Taliban think that this proof is only
circumstantial. Pakistan now says that Riaz Basra, guilty of killing
Iranians and state officials in Pakistan, including an attempt on the life
of the Prime Minister of Pakistan, is sheltering in Afghanistan. The
Taliban response is that they don't even know who Riaz Basra is.

Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif's statement has specifically targeted
Riaz Basra who leads a Deobandi off-shoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba. However, the
recapture of Azam Tariq points the finger in the general direction of the
Deobandi parties who follow an anti-shia dogma. This would include Maulana
Fazlur Rehman's JUI, Maulana Sami-ul-Haq's JUI, and the various other
jehadi outfits like Harkat-ul-Mujahideen involved in the Kashmir jehad and
also probably in the Taliban war against Ahmad Shah Massoud in Afghanistan.

The 'complaint' against Afghanistan could have a serious fallout on
the general policy of allowing the Deobandi and Wahabi warriors a free run
in Pakistan. Indirectly, it would also mean a change of policy towards the
Saudi-backed 'unofficial' warriors fighting in Kashmir. The Ahle Hadith
party supports the official Saudi stance while Lashkar-e-Tayba seems to
plough its separate furrow. Islamabad's new coordination of policy with
Saudi Arabia could affect the militia which played a pivotal role in the
Kargil Operation.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's past ambivalence about the Taliban in
Pakistan is bound to give way to clarity. Earlier in his new tenure he had
made overtures to a Taliban-style religious order in the country during a
speech in the NWFP. His Information Minister Mushahid Hussain had led a
procession in the company of Major Amir and ex-ISI chief Hameed Gul to
Panjpir, the Tribal Areas seminary that feeds warriors to Afghanistan.
Later, Major Amir, brother of the head of the Panjpir seminary, was made
special adviser to Chief Minister NWFP. The Prime minister recently got
Deobandi clerics to lecture his cabinet.
The change in Pakistan should be seen in the light of recent
international contacts made by the government. There is no doubt that the
internal threat was well grasped by the intelligence agencies, but it
perhaps needed international pressure to crystallise new policy. Pakistan's
internal terrorism was often linked to its Kashmir and Afghanistan policies
run by the ISI. After Osama bin Laden was targeted by American missiles, a
number of Sipah-e-Sahaba trainees were killed in his camp. Ahmad Shah
Massoud had produced the corpses of Pakistani 'army officers' alleging they
had been fighting on the side of the Taliban.

In the post-Kargil period, political alignments within Pakistan
threatening the Nawaz Sharif government had caused Shehbaz Sharif to visit
Washington, after which a State Department warning was delivered to the
army and the opposition not to topple the government through
unconstitutional means. Then ISI chief General Khwaja Zia-ud-Din,
personally close to the Prime Minister, was made to visit Washington where
he is supposed to have explained the threat the government faced from the
fundamentalist militias.

Earlier, two Indian members of parliament visited Washington and
talked about threat to India from Afghanistan. There was news that the US,
Russia, India and China might pool intelligence to combat the terrorist
onslaught in the region. In this scenario, Pakistan is bound to face
isolation if it does not align itself with the international 'coalition'
gelling against terrorism which Pakistan says is bothering it at home. Its
economic recovery would be threatened if crucial support from Washington is
not forthcoming. Internal and external contingencies appear to be pushing
the government to grasping a nettle it had so far allowed to grow.

The following points are worth considering:
* The latest statement aligns Pakistan's policy vis-a-vis terrorism with
Saudi Arabia and the United States.
*It marks a change in policy towards the Taliban government in Afghanistan
which had seen consolidation, and formation of vested interests around it
in Pakistan, since 1994.
*It indirectly targets the pro-Taliban Deobandi militias allowed a free run
in Pakistan because of their participation in the Kashmir jehad.
*It begins a new phase in the government's policy towards sectarianism and
connects it with the jehad in Kashmir.
*It indirectly pledges a clean-up of the state agencies involved in
fighting covert wars with the help of the religious militias.

The government is immediately faced with gigantic problems of
internal reform. It will succeed in its new policy only if full cooperation
is forthcoming from the Armed Forces and the agencies working for them. Its
own agencies handling the Deobandi jehadi militias might splinter under the
new policy and align themselves with the powerful vested interests accreted
around the Afghan policy. It will be a wrenching experience the way it
happened when Pakistan delinked from Hekmatyar and adopted Mullah Umar. The
political alliance working against the government will create difficulties
by stoking the anti-government passions among the clergy.

Pakistan's economy has been the worst hit by its jehadi policy - a
'national consensus' that no government has been allowed to change. Steady
militarisation under the infamous 'low-cost option' over the past twenty
years, apart from affecting the collective mind-set, has transferred a
large area of sovereign decision-making to actors that work over the head
of the elected government. The first jolt was received by the economy when
Pakistan took this policy to its climax by testing the nuclear device. Its
logical extension was the Kargil Operation that put the economy in the
oxygen tent and threw the government of Nawaz Sharif into extreme
international isolation.

The dice is loaded against the government. The dislocation of the
jehadi state at this high point of maturity is likely to cause a great
upheaval in Pakistan. But the government's confrontation with the state was
bound to come sooner or later as the state threatened to become
economically dysfunctional. If the government with a broad mandate fails
this time around, no one will have the stomach to change the sinister
paradigm even if the state is breaking up.
-----------------------------------------
#3.

Khaleej Times
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/subcont.htm#story2

BANGLADESHIS PROTEST AGAINST HONOUR KILLINGS IN PAKISTAN

DHAKA - Amnesty International activists took to the streets of Dhaka
yesterday protesting against "honour killings" of girls and women in
Pakistan.

Police blocked the march near the Pakistan High Commission where Amnesty
leaders handed over a letter to Pakistani diplomats, witnesses said.

"We protest the killing of women in Pakistan in the name of honour. Such
acts are on the increase," said Mohammed Golam Mostafa, director of Amnesty
International, Bangladesh.

So-called 'honour killings' are those when families kill a female relative
considered to have shamed the household.

Human rights activists in Pakistan estimate that at least 500 women were
murdered in the name of family honour last year alone.

"Amnesty believes that under no circumstances the killing of women and
girls for retaining family pride and honour of the individuals can be
allowed in a civilised society," Mr Mostafa said. "We urge the Pakistan
government to mobilise its media in discouraging the common people from
pursuing such act of brutality."

The reason can be anything seen as defiance of family wishes - a woman who
rejects the husband chosen for her or who seeks divorce, has an affair or
behaves "immodestly". Iftekar Anjum, a first secretary at the Pakistan High
Commission in Dhaka, told Reuters: "The Pakistan government does not
encourage honour killings and our religion (Islam) does not support such
acts." - Reuters
-----------------------------------
#4.

Khaleej Times
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/subcont.htm#story2

LANKA SHELVES RIGHTS BILL AMID PROTEST

COLOMBO - Sri Lanka yesterday postponed presenting a controversial bill to
parliament that seeks to provide equal opportunities to all communities
amid mounting protests by majority Sinhalese and other ethnic groups.

"With your permission, the government will not present the Equal
Opportunity Bill in parliament today," Minister of Public Administration
and Home Affairs Ratnasiri Wickremenayake told the parliament speaker. He
did not give a reason for the postponement.

The bill has raised a storm of protest not only among the majority
Sinhalese community but also among the minorities whom it seeks to protect.
Hundreds of students of two leading Buddhist schools in the capital took to
the streets yesterday to protest against the bill saying the admission of
minorities would be a threat to the cultural identity of the schools.

The bill seeks to outlaw any discrimination on grounds of ethnicity,
gender, religious or political opinion, language, age or disability, in
relation to employment and education in both the public and private sectors.

Mohammed Ashraff, leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, has also
rejected the bill saying it was political window dressing and would not
serve the minorities. The Muslim Congress is one of the seven parties that
form the ruling coalition.

The United States government, however, recently praised the bill saying it
would serve as a model to other multi-ethnic societies.

More than 70 per cent of Sri Lanka's population is Buddhist, Tamils form
18 per cent and Muslims account for some seven per cent. The rest are
eurasian Burghers and ethnic Malays. - Reuters
--------------------------------------------
#5.
The Independent (Dhaka)
8 October 1999
Section: Asia Pacific
http://independent-bangladesh.com/news/oct/08/081099ap.htm#A5

HINDU MILITANTS CONFIDENT OF BUILDING TEMPLE AT BABRI MOSQUE SITE

AYODHYA (India), Oct 7: The expected victory of a Hindu nationalist led
alliance in parliamentary elections could embolden Hindu militants
preparing to build a temple to the god Rama at the site where they
destroyed a 400 year old mosque seven years ago, reports AP.A mob of nearly
100,000 Hindus demolished the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in 1992, built a
brick lined earthen rampart and placed statues of Hindu gods at the site
they believe is Rama's birthplace. Hindu Muslim rioting erupted across
India, killing more than 2,000 people.There has been no further
construction at the temple site. But a mile away, 50 artisans have been
chiselling images of Hindu gods and goddesses, sandstone pillars and arches
for eventual use in the temple. Another 150 craftsmen are working at two
similar sites in northwestern Rajasthan state, close to New Delhi.When
their work is finished, likely in two years, construction of the temple
will resume, said Paramhans Ram Chander, who heads the committee
coordinating the drive to build the temple."I can't tell you a date, but we
will start building the temple as soon as the preparatory work is over,"
Chander said, adding that it would take less than two months to erect the
temple, its courtyards and arcades over a 62 acre (25 hectare) area in
Ayodhya, 300 miles east of New Delhi.More than 80 per cent of India's one
billion people are Hindu, compared to about 13 per cent who are Muslim. The
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vaipayee, gained strength from the "Hinduness" religious movement after the
destruction of the mosque. But when the party finally came to power in 1996
and 1998, it had to drop most of its Hindu nationalist agenda in order to
form coalition governments.Vaipayee claimed victory Wednesday for his 22
party National Democratic Alliance as vote counting proceeded after
month-long elections. Final official results are expected by Friday, and a
new government is expected to be named by the middle of the month, after
parliament in seated.Daring his 20 months in office, Vaipayee has done
nothing to encourage building the temple, although some members of his
cabinet still mention it.His election platform dropped all references to
his party's original bedrock positions: Eliminating special laws for
Muslims, such as in divorce, and repealing constitutional privileges for
Kashmir, India's only Muslim majority region.On the other hand, neither
Vaipayee nor the hundreds of policemen guarding the unfinished temple site
have tried to stop preparation of the temple furnishings.Even if Vaipayee
gives no public support, a solid victory for his alliance would encourage
the temple builders to proceed."Nearly 40 per cent of the work of making
pillars, arches and images of gods and goddesses is complete," said Anubhai
Sompura, supervisor at the Ayodhya workshop. Plans for the temple call for
a structure 270 feet (81 meters) long, 140 feet (42 meters) wide and 130
feet (39 meters) high.In the meantime, devotees carrying coconuts and
packets of sugar arrive every day at the earthen rampart and weave through
a half mile maze of steel barricades, under the watchful eyes of
policemen.A tarpaulin covers the images of gods; security is so tight that
pens and combs, considered potential weapons, must be left at the entrance.
Muslim shoemaker Mohammed Shefil, 35, said he was resigned to the fact that
the temple would eventually be finished.
______________________________

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch is an informal, independent &
non-profit citizens wire service run by South Asia Citizens Web
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex