[sacw] sacw dispatch (14 Jan 00 )

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch
14 January 2000
________________________
#1. Half Truth A Whole Lie
#2. Pakistan India Peoples Forum event in Calcutta 21 Jan
#3. Pakistan India Peoples Forum colloquim in Delhi 1st Feb
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#1.

The News International, Pakistan
14 January 2000
Opinion

HALF TRUTH A WHOLE LIE
by Rita Manchanda

Next only to the Gulf War and the Kargil conflict, the hijacking of Indian
Airlines' IC814 had become every satellite network's infotainment dream.
The region's 24-hour cable news channels stole audiences away from
Bollywood films (absurdly being telecast simultaneously on Doordarshan and
Nepal TV as the crisis unfolded). You had a choice of watching news as it
endlessly tracked the plane hopscotching from Kathmandu, Amritsar, Lahore,
Dubai to Kandahar, or you could watch a Bollywood rerun.

The voracious appetite of round-the-clock television news brought the drama
into our drawing rooms, seemingly in real time. This meant that every
speculative lead had to be pursued, every rumour had to be aired.
Description of the trauma of hostages was punctuated by commercial breaks
for saris. The critical line between news and entertainment was once more
blurred as it had during the Kargil war and the Belgrade bombing. The
technological leaps of the information age allow us to hop back and forth
between real violence and reel violence, making it difficult to tell the
difference between the two. They are separated by station breaks, or the
flick of a remote. TV privileges the live event.

And against the backdrop of "live" footage numbingly repeated, rumour is
upgraded to fact, prejudice replaces reasoned judgement, and half-baked
analyses of dangerous hawks drive formal policy positions. So the Indian
=46oreign Minister Jaswant Singh at a press conference takes his cue from a
speculative report by Zee's Kathmandu man about five "heavily armed"
hijackers simply crossing the tarmac from a Pakistan International Airlines
flight in Kathmandu to the waiting Indian Airlines flight. And then Zee,
reporting the foreign minister's press conference, doesn't bother to say
that by this time it had been confirmed that the two flights were at least
six hours apart.

Not many questioned facts, especially if it neatly fit the official Indian
line about Nepal being a "hotbed" of ISI activity. Frustrated by the
stalemate in Kandahar, it looked like Pakistan and Nepal were easy
scapegoats for New Delhi. Hijackers, we were told, were of every
nationality except Indian. Subsequently, the term "Muslim" hijackers was
used. The Kalashnikovs and explosives with which the hijackers were said to
be armed, gave way to a vague pistol, a knife and maybe grenades as the
released passengers came out.

Glibly, commentators tossed as "fact" that in the last six months, 22
Kashmiri terrorists had been nabbed in Nepal. They publicly and
irresponsibly introduced a Nepali pashmina trader who was on board as one
of the hijackers. It had now become difficult not just to tell the
difference between news and entertainment, it was getting difficult to tell
the difference between misinformation and disinformation.

Details such as permission to land at Lahore being given at the
intervention of Jaswant Singh, or the fact that the plane had first wanted
to land in Lucknow were irritants to be ignored. Given the demonisation of
Pakistan, commentators on the satellite news channels chose to disregard
information filtering through, and clung to their prejudice about Pakistan
delaying permission for a special Indian aircraft to overfly Pakistan and
go to Kandahar.

The delay in a negotiating team reaching Kandahar, was interpreted as
linked with the Taliban wanting to be the spokesmen for the hijackers. Much
was made of the report of the Taliban refusing to allow an Indian commando
unit to come to Kandahar. It took a veteran Afghan watcher Rahimullah
Yusafzai of the BBC to clarify that Afghan pride would not allow anyone
else to conduct a commando operation on their territory. It was not
sympathy with the terrorists.

On the sixth day of the hijacking drama, when the negotiating team was in
place in Kandahar, the media was full of praise for Talibanised
Afghanistan's principled stand against the hijackers. TV channels, which
just the night before had shrilly linked Taliban ideologue Mulla Omar with
Osma bin Laden, suddenly began commending his stand to storm the aircraft
if the hijackers killed any of the hostages.

One casualty of all this is the promise that an emergent regional TV
network would help build understanding and awareness among the peoples of
South Asia. Instead, it has shown that the regional footprints of channels
like Zee, Star and Pakistan Television in times of crisis simply deepen
prejudices on all sides. Like Kargil, India's first war in a media society,
the hijacking drama too has proven media's tendency to get trapped in super
patriotic jingoism. Today, infowar is recognised as the fourth front of war
in societies where the technology for manipulating propaganda and
perception have reached an advanced stage.

During the Kargil war, the Indian media as "force multiplier" waged war on
that fourth front. The 24-hour news channels have brought in the
CNN-isation effect of saturated but superficial (and usually manipulated)
coverage. Kargil demonstrated the self-induced willingness of the Indian
media to be super patriots first, and journalists second. Indeed the
linkage with Kargil was overtly made on Zee News when it featured the
parents of the 'martyred' Lt Vijendra Thapa to exhort the relatives of the
hostages to be patient.

The funeral of the killed hostage Rippin Katyal was reminiscent of the
endless spectacle of the funerals of the those killed in Kargil. Just as in
the Kargil coverage any discussion of the "why and wherefore" was closed,
in the hijacking drama the root of the problem-Kashmir-was blacked out.

The blame was heaped on the weakest link-Nepal as the base for ISI
anti-Indian activities. Indeed, the first decision by the Indian cabinet as
the hijack drama unfolded was to make the petty and bully-like move to stop
all Indian Airlines flights to Kathmandu. Nepal had to be punished, to the
extent of crippling its tourism industry, for allowing "security lapses".

=46ew in the Indian media asked if after the eight previous hijackings from
Indian cities, similar bans were imposed on those cities. Nepal has been
judged and lynched by the Indian media, which seems to relish picking on
someone much smaller, and to strike when the opponent is down.

This article was first published in the Himal magazine (Kathmandu, Nepal)

_____________

#2.
Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peace & Democracy (PIPFPD)
West Bengal Chapter - Programme on 21 January 2000

Dear Friends,
After the Kargil war-like situation between India and Pakistan, followed
by Coup D Etat in Pakistan and recent hijacking of an Indian Airlines
plane the peace process between India and Pakistan, that turned a new leaf
in the beginning of the year 1999, has suffered a tremendous set-back. The
governments of India and Pakistan are accusing each other in mutual
crimination. The positions of the two governments are only fanning to the
fire of the fundamentalists and the national chauvinists of their
respective countries.
But the peace loving common people of the two countries have a different
story to tell. Right after the Kargil flare up, that engulfed the whole
sub-continent, a good no. Of students from Pakistan visited India in a
goodwill mission. In November 1999 a similar good will mission, under the
aegis of Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy Bangalore
Chapter, visited Pakistan. Many journalists and eminent personalities from
one country visited the other country to explore the resumption of the
peace process through people to people dialogue. Very shortly a contingent
of no less than 50 peace activists from Pakistan would be coming to
Calcutta to participate in a Peace March to be organized by Akhil Bharat
Rachanatmak Samaj during 18 to 20 January 2000. The Pak contingent will
include a good number of senior ex-army officials, eminent intellectuals,
trade unionists, and journalists.
Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy, West Bengal Chapter
will organize a meeting for exchange of views between Pak peace activists
and their Indian counterparts
on
21st January 2000 at 5 P.M.
The venue will be Muslim Institute, 21-A, Haji Md. Mohsin Square, Calcutta
700 016.

The proposed speakers in the meeting are:
* Karamat Ali -- Trade Union Leader, Member of the Forum. Pakistan
Chapter ;
* M.B. Naqvi -- President Pakistan Peace Coalition, Senior Journalist
;
* Tahir Mohammed Khan Chairman of Baluchistan Human Rights Commission
;
* Mubarak Ali -- Eminent Scholar in Islamic History ;
=46rom Pakistan and

* Md. Sayeed Malihabadi -- Editor, The Daily Azad Hind ;
* Malini Bhattacyarya -- Professor, Jadavpur University
* Arun Banaerjee -- Professor, Jadavpur University ;
=46rom India.

=46riends, you are cordially invited to attend the meeting and give moral
support to the process of people to people dialogue to build up sustainable
peace and good neighbourly relation in the sub-continent.

With greetings,
Amit Chakraborty
Jt. Secretary, PIPFPD.WB
________________

#3.

A mini-colloquium on India Pakistan relations

Date : Tuesday February 1st, 2000
Time : 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Venue : New Delhi YMCA Auditorium, 1 Jai Singh Road
New Delhi 110 001

Among the Speakers are:
Ms. Nirmala Deshpande and Mr.Kuldip Nayar.
Harish Khare 'on the Role of Media in promoting dialogue' and
Ved Bhasin 'on importance of dialogue for peaceful and democratic
resolution of the Kashmir problem'. Admiral Ramdas (Chairman of
Pakistan India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy will cover the issue o=
f
demilitarisation and Syeda Hameed on why dialogue is imperative for
democratic governance.

Organised by the India secretariat of Pakistan India Peoples Forum For
Peace and Democracy
__________________________________________
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) since1996.