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[1] From: Kisan <mailbhejna@yahoo.co.in> Date: Mon Sep 25, 2006 Subject: Hafeez Saeed & his arrest: Pakistani version of Punch and Judy show http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/2125 Hafeez Saeed & his arrest:Pakistani version of Punch and Judy show Sun, 2006-09-24 01:40 By Allabaksh - Syndicate Features Hafeez Mohammed Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, has been arrested, released, re-arrested and will undoubtedly be released again. This is not the first time that Pakistan has played out this farcical cycle in order to balance the pulls of two diametrically opposite forces. To Gen Musharraf, men like Hafeez Saeed are ?life-line?; they cannot be put behind bars for long. LeT in whatever name it assumes at a given moment is important for Pakistan? s ?low intensity? war in the Kashmir valley and elsewhere in India. Lately there is an additional reason to be benevolent towards Hafeez Saeed. Like all other ?banned? groups, LeT had deputed one of its franchises to operate in the quake hit Pakistan-occupied Kashmir which was swarmed by foreign relief and charity organisations too. One of the British agencies thus transported to PoK was a Sikh organisation with which the LeT (or whatever it was called at that moment) worked closely. The purpose must have been to gauge the potential for revival of unrest in Punjab after the previous attempt by Pakistan had failed. Hafeez Saeed is considered to be more ?amenable? to the ISI than others in the motley group of jehadi leaders in Pakistan. He also has become somewhat vulnerable to the establishment pressures after a split in the LeT? s direct descendent, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa. These twists and turns in shady Pak groups do not lessen their menace or sinister designs. Their immediate aim may be to run over India, but they have all a larger ambitious goal of seeing the green crescent flying over all world capitals. Yet, they seem to command only peripheral attention in America. The ?arrest? of Saeed is a burlesque similar to Islamabad? s ?ban? on Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and Hizb-ul- Mujahideen (HM), headed by Saeed, Maulana Masood Azhar, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil and Syed Salahuddin respectively. Musharraf himself made the announcement of the ?ban? on these groups amidst much fanfare and international glare in two instalments? on January 12, 2002 and November 15, 2003. Nobody living in Pakistan or territory under its occupation would be allowed to indulge in terrorism, thundered the general for the satisfaction of Washington. Yet, after an initial lull for tactical reasons, these Jehad-preaching outfits were back in business. All they had to do was change their names. Their cadres, infrastructure and assets were intact and their leaders were as free to spread their messages of hate and death at will as in the ?good old days? prior to 9/11. The temporary ?arrests? of the terrorist leaders did not deter them at all because their incarceration meant only a brief restriction on their physical movement from the special but well-appointed houses where they were ?detained?. With all the communication facilities, including satellite telephones, available to them, they could not have really complained about being ?jailed?. They did not even complain about being asked to suspend operations in Kashmir because the instructions from the Pak GHQ were to lie low and wait for the heat (in the wake of 9/11) to disappear. If Musharraf really meant to ban these jehadi/terrorists groups he would have done something more concrete like demolish their infrastructure and snap the long unholy alliance between these groups and the Pakistani intelligence agencies. That he would not do for the simple reason that in reality the Pakistani establishment, army in particular, shares a common hostile view against India and the need to keep the Jehad flag flying to annexe Kashmir. The fact that religious groups today command considerable clout in Pakistan has further strengthened the ties between the establishment and the jehadi/terrorist groups in Pakistan. An interesting thing about the ?arrest? of Saeed and those of his ilk is that one of the ?serious? charges against them is that they are abusive of the president. These ISI pets run down Musharraf? s policy of ?slavery to the Americans.? That they spew much more venom against some perceived ?enemies? of Islam is not mentioned in the charge sheets. Hafeez Saeed and company regularly denounce Hindus and Jews as enemies of Islam and, hence, deserving of annihilation. Despite orders to the contrary, the jehadi/terrorist outfits face no hurdles in carrying out all their activities, from collecting cash, distributing leaflets that preach the ?virtues? of waging a Jehad against India, to organising training camps in Punjab and PoK and making fiery speeches against the ?enemies of Islam?, India in particular. Banners and posters listing telephone numbers of terrorist outfits, inviting would-be terrorists to join the camps, continue to flutter, though perhaps not so brazenly and extensively as in the past. However, there has been one change in the training method of the jehadis. While earlier, large groups of 50 or so used to be trained at the camps run by terrorist groups, now they are trained in groups of 10 or less. Obviously, Pakistan thinks that such tiny presence of ?pupils? at a camp does not entitle it to be counted among the regular training camps for terrorist. After all, Pakistan has been flatly denying the accusations of India and Afghanistan that terrorist camps are still being run in Pakistan. In collusion with his benefactors, Saeed lost no time in declaring that the LeT stands dissolved and he was heading a charity and social welfare organisation called Jamaat-ud-Dawa. This camouflage fools no one because he has not given up his jehadi agenda. By claiming a different orientation of the new outfit, Saeed wants to dodge any action that the government of Pakistan may be forced to initiate under American pressure. Meanwhile, Saeed has further expanded the base of the original LeT by opening a youth wing, called Tulba Jamaat-ul-Dawa that aims at recruiting college students. Saeed? s ?business? is prospering; it is growing with official blessings. Naturally, his arrests are nothing more than the Pakistani version of Punch and Judy show. ----------------------- [2] From: Pradip Kumar Datta <pradip200@yahoo.com> Date: Sun Sep 24, 2006 Subject: Happy Durga Puja Happy Durga Puja and Dasara ------------------ [3] From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Sat Sep 23, 2006 Subject: Pernicious Indo-US Nuke Deal before the Senate: India Pulling Out All The Stops [Whatever be the demerits, or merits, of the 'deal', those who're claiming that the US is pressurising India into the 'deal' are plainly enough barking up the wrong tree. Top Indian dignitaries making a beeline for Washington clearly testifies to that.] I/IV. U. S.-India Nuclear Deal May Stall in Congress as Time Runs Out By Judy Mathewson Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- An agreement to sell nuclear technology to India, one of President George W. Bush's key foreign-policy initiatives, may not get congressional approval this year. While the agreement was approved by the House in July and may be introduced in the Senate next week, there may not be enough time for the two chambers to draft final legislation before the November elections. Failure by Congress to pass the measure would require new legislation to be introduced next year, when Bush's Republican Party may no longer have a majority in one or both chambers of Congress that would be needed to push it through. ``My fear is we'd have to start from scratch next year, and that all of the effort we've expended on Capitol Hill will be for naught and our opportunity will slip away,'' said Ron Somers, president of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce's U. S.-India Business Council, which represents companies such as General Electric Co. and Westinghouse Electric Co. that are in line to supply India with nuclear equipment. Bush has touted the agreement with India as a centerpiece of his foreign policy. It would enable U. S. companies such as Fairfield Connecticut-based GE and Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse to sell non-military nuclear fuel and power-plant equipment to India. The legislation would exempt India from U. S. laws that bar such technology transfers to countries that haven't submitted to international inspections. ``The longer this delay drags on, the more of a missed opportunity this becomes on U. S.-India trade, particularly in terms of U. S. exports to India,'' said Devesh Kapur, director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. $100 Billion The U. S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business organization, says the agreement could generate $100 billion in energy sales for U. S. companies including San Francisco-based Bechtel Group Inc., the biggest U. S. engineering contractor. The U. S.-India Business Council said India's nuclear-power requirements will generate as many as 27,000 ``high-quality jobs'' each year for the next 10 years in the U. S. nuclear industry. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced the agreement in July 2005. It would require India, for the first time, to open some of power plants to United Nations inspectors. It marks a turnabout for the U. S., which has barred nuclear exports to India since that country tested an atomic bomb in 1974. `Critical Test' Should Congress delay any more, ``the impact will be very great in India -- where it is seen as a critical test of the new relationship with America,'' said Stephen Cohen, an India analyst at the Brookings Institution, a policy study group in Washington. Bush's plan faces other hurdles as well. The agreement requires approval from the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group, which is dedicated to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. The group would have to unanimously agree to exempt India from a bar on selling atomic fuel and technology to countries that haven't signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Norway, Australia, and Canada are undecided or undeclared, while Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said in June that his country has ``genuine concerns'' about the plan. That position is unchanged, according to Aoife McGarry, a third secretary in the Irish Embassy in Washington. There is also doubt about whether the administration can count on China's support. Qin Gang, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said this week in Beijing that ``all nations must develop peaceful use of nuclear energy within the framework of the international community.'' `China Is the Wild Card' ``China is the wild card,'' Robert Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, said in an interview. ``China doesn't like what this deal does strategically because it boosts India's prospects for becoming a major world power.'' The agreement got a boost yesterday when a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader William Frist of Tennessee said he planned to bring the measure to a vote next week after overcoming resistance from a Republican lawmaker. Senator John Ensign, a Nevada Republican, had objected to unrelated legislation added to the India measure by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The added measure would have committed the U. S. to spot checks of its nuclear facilities by international inspectors. Ensign feared terrorist states might be able to infiltrate the teams checking U. S. facilities, according to his spokesman, Jack Finn. Trying to Adjourn Congress is trying to adjourn at the end of next week, as lawmakers return to their districts to campaign for the midterm elections. This would leave as few as six days for the legislation to pass the Senate and be shaped into a final measure that would need the approval of both chambers. Lawmakers plan to return after the elections for a ``lame-duck'' session to pass vital spending measures. Somers said failure to secure final legislation could have dire consequences for U. S. businesses. ``It would be like handing $100 billion in civilian nuclear-power work to our competitors for Indian business -- the French, the Canadians, the Germans and the Russians,'' he said. To contact the reporter on this story: Judy Mathewson in Washington at jmathewson@bloomberg.net Last Updated: September 22, 2006 00:05 EDT II. http://www.indianexpress.com/story/13255.html Senate vote on nuclear deal likely next week Lalit K Jha Posted online: Saturday, September 23, 2006 at 0000 hrs IST NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 22 The Indo-US civilian nuclear bill might not come up for voting on Friday in the Senate as expected. The Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah falls on that day due to which a large number of Senators are likely to be absent. The Senate, however, will begin discussions late in the evening on that day. Voting is likely to take place next week. Earlier in the day, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee met US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in an effort to clear last-minute glitches over the nuclear deal that has been with the Senate for more than two months now. Accompanied by Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran, Mukherjee met Rice for about half an hour. Though details of the meetings were not available, a State Department official said the two leaders had a ?good, constructive? meeting, indicating that any hurdle to the crucial nuke issue seemed to have been sorted out. ?They covered a range of topics including US-India civil nuclear initiative, World Trade Organisation negotiation, the situation in Nepal and UN issues,? the State Department official said. Delay in voting, sources said, was also partially attributed to the presence of the Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in Capitol Hill, where he met the US President, George Bush. With Senate passing the nuke bill on the same day of his presence in Washington and meeting with Bush specially at a time when the Kashmir peace process has started again could have resulted in a little bit of upsetting the Pakistani ruler, who also has been insisting on a similar deal with US. It is believed that Rice updated Mukherjee about the civilian nuclear issue, including the latest status in Senate. Officials said the good news is that the three Senators who had placed ?hold? on the nuke bill have relented, thus, paving the way for the much awaited debate in the US Senate and the voting sometime early next week. Saran, who had to rush to New York specially for the meeting with Rice, met the Senate Majority Leader Dr William Frist, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Chairman of House International Relations Committee Henry Hyde among others. III. http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1803102,00050001.htm Pranab meets Rice, discusses nuke deal Press Trust of India New York, September 22, 2006 Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held discussions on the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal that comes up in the Senate in the next few days. During their half-an-hour meeting on Thursday night, the two leaders also exchanged views on several regional and international issues of mutual concern. Officials briefing reporters did not give any more details, but said the meeting was held in a cordial atmosphere. IV. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2007851.cms Saran in US to get nuke deal past Senate Indrani Bagchi [ 20 Sep, 2006 0056hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK ] NEW DELHI: As the nuclear deal moves to a floor vote in the US Senate days before it stops work for elections, foreign secretary Shyam Saran gears up for a final round of diplomacy with Senate leaders and his US counterpart Nick Burns. Now all this could have happened last week, if an unexpected resignation drama in the MEA did not force Saran to postpone his visit to Washington. Neither the US nor India want a repeat of the House of Representatives vote with amendments requiring more work at the reconciliation stage. Right now, both sides are just keen that it passes through the Senate before October 6, which is its last working day, before the Congress breaks for elections. This is the idea ? after the Senate votes on it, reconciliation can be worked out over the next couple of months. The resultant up-down vote can happen in the "lame duck" session of the Congress between election day and January, enabling US President George Bush to sign the waiver into law by January 20. It's a tight schedule and even optimists believe both sides are cutting it a bit too fine. Because, if the January deadline is missed, the whole process goes back to starting point. The problem is, the Senate functions by its own rules. It has been flexible enough to work on what is known in American legislative jargon as a "unanimous consent" vote. But this too needs heavy duty communication which goes by the name "hotlining" and nobody is quite sure whether all the loose ends will be tied. His job is to reassure Senate leaders on a number of questions. -------------- [4] http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,1874358,00.html Fareeda's fate: rape, prison and 25 lashes Up to 80 per cent of women in Pakistan's jails are charged under rules that penalise rape victims. But hardliners have vetoed an end to the Islamic laws ----------------------------------------------------------------- DONATE BLOOD.....SAVE LIVES All healthy males and females between 18-25 are encouraged to donate blood. INDIA THINKERS NET ------------------------------------- |
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