[sacw] sacw dispatch #1 | 15 July 00

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch #1
15 July 2000

________________

#1. India: VHP Thugs trying to obtain consultative status at UN
#2. Sri Lanka: Tamil group condemns use of child soldiers
#3. Pakistan: Comedy of the grotesque
#4. Pakistan: Another U-turn
________________

#1.

>From the Editors & Publishers of Communalism Combat (Mumbai, India)
http:www.sabrang.com

Friday, July 14, 2000

Dear friend,

The VHP, the organisation best known for promoting hatred against
religious minorities in India is aspiring to gain consultative status with
the Economic and Social Council of the UN. Reproduced below is the
exclusive report on the subject published in the latest (July 2000) issue
of Communalism Combat. Please lodge your protest with the UN (addresses are
given below in the report) and give the matter wide publicity, asking
others to join.
News Report reproduced from Combat:

VHP seeks special UN status

The outfit best known in India fore inciting hatred against minorities
wants to be recognised as global ambassador for peace. Campaign against it.

THE Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)- best known for its role in the
mobilisation for, and the actual demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya
in 1992, and for its hate campaign against Christians in the last two years
- has applied to the United Nations Economic and Social Council for ECOSOC
consultative status as an NGO. It claims to be an NGO "located in New
Delhi, India, that works for the total welfare of humanity."
A well-placed source told Communalism Combat that the application by the
VHP for consultative status with the UN NGO Committee also states: "While
it has taken on the responsibility of representing and promoting the
welfare-related activities of Hindus, it also, without discrimination,
promotes moral and ethical education, provides medical aid for the needy,
relief to the poor, advances general public utility and pursues
socio-religious, scientific and general research."
For the moment, the UN has deferred any decision on the VHP's application.
Ironically, the only objection so far received on the VHP's application is
from Pakistan that has submitted that the VHP has been at the forefront of
attacks on Christians. It even quote the VHP leader Ashok Singhal's
reaction to the rape of four nuns in MP two years ago justifying the crime
as "people's anger against conversions".
To gain such consultative status with the UN, an applicant has to go via
the "NGO Committee" which is a UN committee of government representatives.
The current members are: Algeria, Bolivia, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba,
Ethiopia, France, India, Ireland, Lebanon, Pakistan, Romania, Russian
Federation, Senegal, Sudan, Tunisia, Turkey, USA.
A consultative status allows the NGO to attend UN meetings and make written
statements and in some cases oral presentations.
One of the principles relied on for granting of 'consultative relations' is
that "the aims and purposes of the organisation shall be in conformity with
the spirit, purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations".
This limitation has not, however, proscribed other fairly dubious
organisations from gaining a consultative status. It includes apparently
the National Rifle Association in the USA which advocates allowing teachers
to carry guns in order to deal with the increase in school shootings in
that country!
With the application of the VHP has been currently deferred thanks to an
intervention by Pakistan, there is time for individuals and groups to flood
the United Nations with strong protests against such status being accorded
any time in future to the VHP.
When Pakistan raised objections at the United Nations recently, the Indian
representative on the committee claimed that the NGO had already answered
the questions being raised.
Incidentally, here is what the Preamble to the UN Charter says:
"WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED
to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our
lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of
the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large
and small, and
to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations
arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be
maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in
larger freedom,
AND FOR THESE ENDS
to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good
neighbours, and
to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and
to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods,
that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and
to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and
social advancement of all peoples,
HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS
Accordingly, our respective governments, through representatives assembled
in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to
be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United
Nations and do hereby establish an international organisation to be known
as the United Nations.
The words and deeds of the VHP and its youth wing, the Bajrang Dal, in the
last several years (reports in the current issue document many recent
instances) are ample testimony to how their aims and objects conform to the
"spirit, purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations".

Address your objections to:
Office of High Commissioner
for Human Rights
World conference secretariat
1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
e-mail: husbands@u...
Development and Human
Rights Secretariat
United nations, Room S-1040,
New York, NY10017, USA
e-mail: vasic@u...
______

#2.

South China Morning Post
Wednesday, July 12, 2000

SRI LANKA
Tamil group condemns use of child soldiers
ASSOCIATED PRESS in Colombo

Updated at 2.45pm:
A human rights group made up largely of Tamil intellectuals has accused
the Tamil Tiger rebels of forcing boys and girls as young as 10 to join
the guerilla group.
Refusal often invites torture, the University Teachers for Human Rights,
Jaffna, said in a statement on Wednesday.

In an 18-page report made, the groups said that nine out of 15 children
recruited from a school in the rebel-held northern town of Mallavi had
died in fighting in April and May. The group said the children died in
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam advance toward Jaffna city in an
operation the guerilla leaders called ''unceasing waves''.

The advance was stalled just outside the city by the Sri Lankan army
using multi-barrel rocket launchers and air attacks.

''Unlike in the earlier phases of fighting, where small arms played a
dominant role, most of the young being killed on the LTTE side are now
brought home in sealed coffins as they had been mangled by shelling,''
the human rights group said.

The rebels have been fighting for 17 years for a homeland for Sri
Lanka's 3.2 million Tamils, saying they are discriminated against by the
Sinhalese, who make up 14 million of the country's 18.6 million people
and dominate the military and government.

Although Amnesty International and other human rights groups have often
accused the rebels of recruiting children, this is the first time Tamil
intellectuals have made the accusation, and coupled it with allegations
of torture for child victims who resist joining the ranks.

Rajani Thiranamama, who founded the group in 1981, was assassinated by
the rebels in 1987 when the professors, based in Colombo and at Jaffna
University, criticized the LTTE human rights record.

When the rebels took control of Jaffna in 1990, the office of the human
rights group was shifted to Colombo. But it still has Jaffna University
teachers as members.

The group collects information from like minded Tamils living in
rebel-held areas and distributes statements through the Internet,
maintaining a low profile in Colombo for fear of rebel attacks,

The group has also accused the Sri Lankan military of extra-judicial
killings, torture and failure to punish officers responsible for
deliberate attacks against civilians.
_____

#3.

The Friday Times
14 July 2000

Comedy of the grotesque

Ejaz Haider says the military's desire to see things happen neatly
from reveille to taps cannot be fulfilled in a highly complex society

The decision by Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf to reach out to
the politicians again throws up the issue of military's role in the
polity and, by extension, civil-military relations. The military
government which shunned politicians began a political initiative July 3
with General Pervez Musharraf meeting with politicians across the
divide, including leaders from the Pakistan People's Party and the
Pakistan Muslim League. Is it an admission of failure, if not defeat?
Let us consider some facts.

Traditionally, the military has justified coups on the pretext of saving
the polity. The politicians are accused of failing to deliver and
plunging the country in political or constitutional crises. The script
has never changed. Politicians are demonised and the nation is told that
they present a grave danger to the country's interests. The corollary:
the army has to take over.

However, it is a matter of record that after some time the military is
always forced to rely on the politicians to link up with the masses.
President Ayub Khan tried to create a new constituency and a King's
party - the experiment failed. General Yahya Khan was a sequel to Ayub's
martial law and therefore does not count for much in independent terms;
General Ziaul Haq tried to put one party down and therefore had to rely,
out of sheer pragmatism, on politicians opposed to Mr Bhutto and his
Pakistan People's Party. General Musharraf seems to be trying to get rid
of some of the top leaders on both sides of the political divide.
Whether he will succeed is anybody's guess, but the main point is that
after some time every military government has found it both expedient
and necessary to bring in the politicians and to attempt a transition of
sorts to civilian rule. This indicates per se the limitations of
military rule. Even as it takes over, the military has to justify the
act on the basis of the immediacy of the circumstances, and therefore
express the desire and the necessity to return to normal life when the
crisis is over.

That the approach is logically unsound is clear from the cycle Pakistan
has seen where the civil-military equation has remained unsolved and
every military rule has arguably resulted in throwing up even more
enfeebled political structures. In fact, a strong case can be made, and
has indeed been made, that the corruption of political structures and
the lack of credible political leadership can be traced to intermittent
military takeovers. Therefore, contrary to military's avowed slogan of a
return to "true democracy", the return to democracy has always been an
uninspiring event under uninspiring political leaders, who were groomed
for the most part by the military.

But the question is: Why does the military want a political linkage when
it comes to power avowedly shunning politics and politicians? Let us
position this question on a benign view of the military's intentions.
That the military keeps witnessing one constitutional breakdown after
another, one political crisis after another, until someone decides that
enough is enough and it is time to put things straight. Since the
question is pegged to a benign view of the intentions, the
presupposition also is that the military takes over in fact with the
desire and confidence that it can and will put matters right. It walks
into the vacuum. What next? It finds that it neither has the resources
nor the expertise to run the country. It tries to rely on civil
bureaucracy but that can only work in the short-term. It tries to hunt
for the right civilians, finds some, brings them in, only to find out
that while they may be brilliant administrators and planners, they
cannot reach out to the masses. That requires a different strategy; it
also requires a different brand of people.

If the junta is sharp on the uptake, it realises sooner than later that
this is what politics is all about. That it is messy, mostly irrational,
tainted with compromises, largely deceptive and essentially demagogic,
requiring in large measure people who can do what they will never say
and say what they will mostly never do. It is, for the most part, the
comedy of the grotesque. It is also, what the military can never be,
because to be like that would deprive the military of all that it
cherishes the most - discipline, integrity, courage, esprit de corps,
precise planning and ruthless execution and so on. So how does the
military deal with the situation after the reality has dawned on it? It
looks around and finds that the jokers it had booted out were the most
suited for the job. It has no option but to get them back. By then it
has also had a good shot at politicking and knows how the game is
played. The military's world therefore always ends not with a bang but
with a whimper.

The October 12 coup is no exception. If anything, it was done more
overtly then ever before to save the "corporate interests" of the
military. The reformist agenda, inevitably, was an afterthought. But
even so, since the original question was and remains pegged to the
supposition of good intentions, one would refrain from challenging
certain basic assumptions. Yet, the fact that the wheel may be coming
full circle cannot be denied. What choices the good general may have
now?

Essentially, the general has two choices to make. Having learnt how
messy politics can be and indeed is, to effect some basic reforms and
extricate. Or to grit his teeth and opt for more tactics in a situation
that necessarily demands long-term strategy. He seems, for now, to have
opted for the latter. That is bad news, but let us see how things might
unfold. He has begun consulting political leaders. That is good because
that implies acceptance of his limitations. But the attempt seems geared
towards a desire to chop the heads off the PPP and the PML and to create
a new political dispensation. That may be desirable, but it is
impractical. Here are some reasons:

For all the flip-flops by the politicians since 1988, the country did
see movement towards a two-party system. In fact, the biggest blunder by
the establishment after it booted out Ms Benazir Bhutto was to give the
Pakistan Muslim League its "heavy mandate". The idea was to put the PPP
down. The results are clear to everyone by now. Creating an alternative
political party in a way that the two-party balance is rendered
ineffective will be a grave mistake. Not only will it create a political
vacuum in which parochial interests will develop along provincial,
ethnic, tribal and linguistic fault-lines, it will also give the
religious parties an opportunity to generate political capital and
develop as a viable counter-force. In the absence of recognisable
personalities across the federating units, the voters will be left with
no choices at the larger level. They will be forced into making
parochial choices on the basis of immediate or vested interests.

Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif may not be God's gift to this nation, but they
are necessary, nevertheless. Elsewhere on the news pages this week, the
PML central leader Chaudhry Shuja'at in an interview has conceded that
Sharif remains the most popular PML leader. As for Bhutto, she is the
undisputed leader of the PPP as is also clear from the fact that the PPP
leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim met with General Musharraf only after he had
spoken with her and apprised her of the situation. For any PPP leader to
make an overture towards the military government without her blessings
would be political suicide.

So, is it back to square one? Yes, and no. Yes, because politics and
governing is the job of the politicians. The process has been far from
satisfactory in Pakistan but the military takeovers have only worsened
the situation. Therefore, at some point the military has to decide that
governing is not its domain and internal security - as General Musharraf
inappropriately interpreted in one of his press conferences - does not
mean the constitution allows the army to topple political governments.
In any case, the definition of internal security will always be
military's own and therefore not amenable to rational, objective
criteria. Extricating from a situation of its own making will be
difficult for the military but the more it waits or tries to put things
right, the more it will bog down.

But it need not think that all is lost. While it is in the saddle, and
while accepting the basic logic of its limitations, it can and should
try to do certain things. It should try to put in place the basic
institutions that strengthen the civil society against the state. Some
of that it is doing by enhancing the powers of the election commissioner
and putting right the voters' lists. Similarly, it must ensure, before
it leaves, that the institution of judiciary is made totally independent
of any external pressures. It is anomalous given the PCO under which the
judiciary has provided the government its locus standi and secured its
own existence, but that should not prevent some good coming out of this
situation. The government has also taken a tough stand on the issue of
expanding the tax net for which it must be praised.

However, that is about all it should do. It should not try to disrupt
existing political structures by either trying to create new ones or
attempting to do things on a non-party basis. Political structures
require a process of evolution, not revolution. The PPP is internally
undemocratic but there is a certain pragmatism about that lack of
democracy. It is a fact that Ms Bhutto keeps the PPP together across the
federating units. This state of affairs is more reflective of the
socio-cultural structures of South Asia than of a political phenomenon.
Even India, with a much stronger political tradition, faces this
problem. This situation can be addressed only through more and not less
democracy. As for the PML, let the judiciary and the PML decide Mr
Sharif's fate. But there should be no attempt by the military government
to actively support or encourage dissent within the League. Such
attempts only further corrupt the political structures, enfeebling them
in the long run rather than strengthening them, which is what is
required if the political process in this country has to take off.
Ostensibly, that is also the reason for the military to be where it
finds itself today. Therefore, it will be anomalous for it to take over
power on the pretext that corrupt political structures endanger
Pakistan's security and then do things that would necessarily corrupt
them.

Finally, the military needs to think clearly and think hard about its
own role in the polity. There will be some temptation to create a
constitutional niche for itself. It must avoid that temptation.
Democracy tempered with conditionalities never works. Moreover, a
constitutional role for the military will only legitimise the illogic of
military interventions. The desire by the military to see things happen
neatly from reveille to taps does not work in a highly complex society.
If it can strengthen certain basic institutions whose independence is
essential to the smooth working of democracy, and more than that
constitutional liberalism, which underpins true democracy, it will
perhaps find it less tempting to play a political role after every
decade and for which, it need not be said, it has found itself wanting
every time it has struck.

______

#4.

Far Eastern Economic Review
July 20, 2000

PAKISTAN
Another U-turn
After initiating talks with a leading party, military leaders arrest 300
of its members

By Ahmed Rashid/LAHORE

KULSOOM SHARIF'S HUSBAND, ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has been in an
Islamabad jail since the military deposed him last October. Serving two
life terms for hijacking and terrorism--actions taken in an attempt to
avoid the coup--and now on trial on multiple corruption charges, Sharif
has lost almost all credibility with the Pakistani public. Nevertheless,
Mrs. Sharif has led a vociferous campaign to release her husband. She has
failed to get much attention, let alone muster political support--until
now.

On July 8, Mrs. Sharif staged a dramatic protest, driving through the
streets of Lahore and locking herself in her car to avoid arrest for
planning a pro-Nawaz rally. She stayed in the car for 10 hours while the
public and the media watched. At last, police brought a crane and lifted
the vehicle away, with her inside, and transported the cargo to an army
guest house. She was later released.

The military's action was part of a surprising reversal in what seems to
have become a policy of frequent contradictions. In early July, Chief
Executive Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf began a long-awaited dialogue with senior
politicians from all parties. He even met Raja Zafrul Haq, a leader of
Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League. The meeting reportedly took place without
incident. But in pre-dawn raids on July 7, police arrested over 300
members of the PML to prevent them from joining Mrs. Sharif and violating
a ban on political rallies.

The rapid shift from dialogue to crackdown took place under the shroud of
excessive secrecy that routinely surrounds the military's decision-making
process. But the reversal did serve to further expose the lack of
strategic direction of Pakistan's 10-month-old military regime. In the
context of a daily routine of turmoil--which in July has featured fatal
bomb blasts in the Punjab, an explosion at the country's embassy in
neighbouring Afghanistan, and strikes and riots by shopkeepers--it's not
surprising that the public is frustrated and uneasy.

In fact, Musharraf's multi-party meetings had raised hopes that the army
was devising an exit strategy in preparation for national elections, which
by constitutional mandate are due by 2002. Musharraf has made it clear
that he wants the two largest parties, the PML and Benazir Bhutto's
Pakistan People's Party, to take part in elections, provided the old
leaders are out of the way. The plan has popular support, given that
Bhutto is in exile and has no more credibility than Sharif.

But the crackdown on the PML quickly dampened hopes of a fast-track to
democracy. Few observers could divine the logic of the generals, given
that many senior PML leaders, including Zafrul Haq, want to dump Sharif as
party leader and start a dialogue with the military to restore democracy.
The arrests led even Zafrul Haq to condemn the military. "There was no
need for such action against peaceful citizens," he said to reporters
afterward.

Rather than erasing Bhutto and Sharif from politics, the crackdown earned
them the sympathy often accorded Pakistani martyrs. While they remain
discredited, their factions in their surviving parties now have a new
lease on life.

The military's inconsistency applies to relations with Islamic leaders as
well. While the interior minister, retired Gen. Moeenuddin Haider, has
railed against the intolerance of Islamic extremists, the regime has been
bending over backward to accommodate the demands of the National Unity
Council, a new 18-party alliance of Islamic fundamentalist parties. After
forcing the regime to back down on reforming a controversial blasphemy
law, the Islamists are now demanding bans on all Western-funded
non-government organizations, as well as on the collection of interest by
banks and on cable TV.

According to an investment banker in Lahore, the spectre of further
concessions to the National Unity Council is "driving away not just
foreign investment, but hopes of reviving local investment also."

Without foreign investment, the country shows little hope of economic
recovery, particularly as Islamabad's latest budget did not meet the
International Monetary Fund's demands for reform. With a crisis also
looming with the World Bank over a $1.5 billion power project, the regime
can ill afford its frequent changes of course.

-30-
______________________________________________
SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WEB DISPATCH (SACW) is an
informal, independent & non-profit citizens wire service
run by South Asia Citizens Web (http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex)
since 1996. Dispatch archive from 1998 can be accessed
by joining the ACT list run by SACW. To subscribe send
a message to <act-subscribe@egroups.com>
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL