[sacw] sacw dispatch #3 (10 June 00)

Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
Sat, 10 Jun 2000 13:28:20 +0200


South Asia Citizens Web - Dispatch #3
10 June 2000
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex

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#1. Pakistan Outlines Plans to Curb Militant Networks
#2. India: A secular activist comments on Bomb blasts in churches
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#1.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/061000pakistan-terrorism.html
New York Times June 10, 2000

Pakistan Outlines Plans to Curb Militant Networks

By JUDITH MILLER

SLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 8 -- After months of criticism from Washington
of its handling of terrorism, Pakistan today outlined an ambitious campaign
aimed at slowly curbing networks of militants that have taken root here
and in Afghanistan.
Senior officials said the military government has decided to act not
because of the American pressure, but because the networks threaten
Pakistan by "fanning sectarian violence and poisoning people's minds,"
said Moinuddin Haider, the interior minister.
There has been a growing criticism of Pakistan by Washington and
independent groups. A Congressionally appointed advisory panel has
recommended that Pakistan be designated as a government that is "not
cooperating fully" against terrorism.
In an interview, Mr. Haider said his government had made a "clear-cut
policy decision" to begin controlling the thousands of religious schools,
some of which preach hatred of the West and provide young recruits to the
"jihads," or holy wars, in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya, and
to other conflicts involving Muslims.
Some also channel militants to terrorist groups such as those linked to
the Saudi financier Osama bin Laden, who is being sheltered by Afghanistan
and whose network has been accused of repeatedly killing Americans.
At Pakistan's urging, Mr. Haider said, the Taliban in Afghanistan have
expelled several Pakistanis and several Arabs wanted by their home
governments for alleged terrorist attacks. He said the Taliban have also
occupied Rishkavour, which Western diplomats say is a leading training
camp for militants near Kabul.

In addition to providing mujahedeen, or holy warriors, for conflicts
throughout the world, such camps have also produced the terrorists who
bombed the World Trade Center and two American Embassies in Africa,
intelligence officials have concluded. Most recently, veterans of such
camps plotted to attack tourist sites in Jordan and America around the
time of the new year's celebrations, they say.
The United States has become alarmed about those networks, particularly
those affiliated with or supported by Mr. bin Laden.
Mr. Haider, a retired general who was governor of Sindh Province until
his current appointment, insisted that Pakistan made the decision based
on its own security interests. "I feel this is good for Pakistan," he
said. "I'm not following anyone else's agenda. "Pakistan ought to become
a progressive, modern and tolerant secular state."
He said the campaign would mark a radical departure from some of
Pakistan's political and religious traditions. "It will not happen
overnight, and it will upset many people," Mr. Haider said. But he added
that his government was determined to enforce a "gradual rollback" of the
networks.
Asked for comment on the steps outlined this week, Karl F. Inderfurth,
assistant secretary of state for South Asia, said the United States
welcomed them. Though Washington had not been officially informed about
some of the measures, he said: "These are precisely the kinds of things
we've been hoping to hear from the government of Pakistan. We hope
they'll be successful in carrying them out."
Whether they will be, he added, is "the $64,000 question."
Another American official who monitors terrorism expressed skepticism
about whether the Taliban were being truly responsive and whether
Pakistan, which is facing strikes and growing criticism of its economic
measures, would maintain pressure on the Taliban.
He noted, for example, that Washington had not confirmed that the
Taliban have taken over Rishkavour. But he said Islamabad's actions
reflect a "higher level of effort than we've recently seen."
Among other things, the steps Pakistan is talking about include demanding
that Afghanistan shut down 18 training camps identified by Pakistan;
arresting and extraditing 20 to 25 Pakistanis and an unspecified number
of Arabs wanted for terrorism by their respective governments; and
improving border controls.
A second part of the effort involves the potentially explosive topic of
identifying thousands of religious schools, which typically have not been
regulated, and imposing standards on them.
To date, Mr. Haider said, about 4,000 religious schools, or madrassas,
have been registered. He has been meeting with madrassa leaders, he said,
to encourage them to modernize their curriculum to include mathematics and
computer skills. Such schools, he said, which often take the place of
public schools, should not produce zealots, but "balanced persons."
Jessica Stern, a terrorism expert at Harvard University and a former
official in the Clinton administration, said the Pakistani program could
greatly reduce terrorism in the region. But she said only 4,345 schools
have been registered so far, of an estimated 40,000. And, she said, most
of the rural, most extremist madrassas strongly oppose government
intervention in their activities. Pakistan has come a long way, she said,
but it has a long way to go in preventing sectarian violence.
Zahid Hussain, a senior editor of Newsline, an independent monthly,
said the military government is caught between competing pressures. On
one hand, he said, it needs the West economically and does not want to be
isolated politically. But on the other, he said he doubted that it could
afford to antagonize the religious groups that are a core political
constituency.
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
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#2.

10 June 2000
=46rom-
Ram Puniyani
Secretary, EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity)
B-64,I.I.T. Qutrs
Powai, Mumbai 400076
Ph.5723522,5725045(R), 5767763 (O)

Sir/Madam

The remarkably 'prompt' defense of the BJP and VHP in concluding that the
blasts in Churches are a handiwork of the ISI needs only to be
'appreciated'. "The Foreign Hand"
theory really comes handy for the culprits when cornered, and that's why
not only this attack on churches but many other incidences can be blamed
on the nefarious ISI which is out to destabilize the India despite 'iron
man' occupying the seat of Home ministry.
After Babri demolition BJP ideologue MR. K.R. Malakani in an article said
that it was ISI, which was behind demolition. After Pastor Stains and his
minor sons being roasted alive by Bajarang Dal follower Dara Singh, the
top three ministers of BJP led coalition were prompt to label this as an
international conspiracy to destabilize the BJP led coalition. One may add
had BJP type Govt. been in power at the time of murder of the Father of
the Nation it could have promptly put the blame of that also on the
'enemy country' across the border.
Can we ignore the stark realities and believe the motivated statements of
ideologues of Sangh Parivar (SP) who are peddlers of hatred against
minorities and the wily neighbor of ours? The connecting link between
Gandhi murder, anti-Muslim violence and the current anti Christian
violence is the 'Hate ideology', which is manufactured in the RSS shakhas
and then 'successful' propagated widely to make it a part of 'social
common sense'. That's why Sardar Patel himself in a letter to the RSS
supremo said the it was the hatred spread by RSS leaders which motivated
Godse to extinguish the life of the Mahatma. Similarly in pursuance of the
agenda of Hindu Rashtra the hatred has been and is being spread against
the minorities which forms the base on which the anti-minority violence
stands. Various wings of this SP take up the 'hate ideology' and through
different conveyor belts this gets converted in to either Murder of
Mahatma, or anti-Muslim pogroms or demolition of Babri masjid or burning
of Pastor Stains or the blasts in Churches.

Ram Puniyani
Secretary, EKTA

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