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Archive for February, 2012

Pakistan: Nation of Stolen Future Looks Desperate for Change and New Leadership

Pakistan: Nation of Stolen Future Looks Desperate for Change and New Leadership

Over the past three years, the PPP dominated Zardari government in collaboration with the Army Generals were engaged in deceit of corrupted normalcy – extreme rhetoric, irrational thinking and belligerent outcomes and completely divorced from the prevalent strategic-economic-political realities on the ground requiring ‘Urgent Rethinking’ and navigational change to make new policies and new directions to disconnect with the treacherous present dictated by the US hegemony.

The policy and practices of self-generated fantasy did nothing good to serve the interests of the common people except to embrace increased foreign (USA-British) reliance, internal intrigues and terrorism and destruction of the capacity of the Pakistan to survive as an independent State of Muslim Nation. This mockery of political existence has made Pakistan vulnerable to sudden and accidental collapse – the ultimate death of the nation.

“Many and sharp the num’rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And Man, whose heav’n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, –
Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!”

(Robert Burns, From Man was made to Mourn: A Dirge, 1785)

Even if the obvious circumstances deny place for creative solutions and a new political system for change and freedom from the absurdity of the Few, but if there are mindful and active people of Reason and dedication to pursue ‘Change’, the Nation can be reformed and rebuilt out of the deliberate neglect, political mismanagement and ruins of the few corrupted rulers. Could the ‘Thinking People’ of Pakistan reverse the course of junk history and make a new beginning based on the Islamic ideology and values of the concept of Pakistan? After much destructions of the public institutions and trust, could the new generations of educated, honest and intelligent Pakistanis get a breathing space – anew opportunity denied in the past, to initiate and build new political institutions and introduce educated proactive visionary leadership and help to protect the intellectual foundation, integrity and security of the besieged nation?

Jeff Gates (“The Seduction of the Knowledge-Based Society” Dissident Voice: 01/8/2011) noted a rational vision in progress for the people and nations changing darkness of ignorance and indifference into knowledge-oriented new world

“The appeal of the Knowledge Society is apparent. Who could object to nations preparing their citizens for the 21st century? Yet unless knowledge is changed, the result could worsen an already dangerous situation.”

The enlightened Muslim thinkers, visionaries and ordinary people striving for the freedom of a distinct nationhood out of much lost Muslim ruled India, were not endangered species but politically energetic and proactive active institutions offering their creative thoughts and efforts for a continuous struggle to create Pakistan. What went wrong with the succeeding generations to abandon that intelligent principle and succumb to bogus symbolism of democracy as it stands now in Pakistan– that few pro-British neo-colonial subservient feudal lords could sustain that role for the future-making. The junk history of the past fifty years cannot regain the time and opportunities consumed by the Generals, Bhuttos, Zardaris, Shraifs and Gujrat’s Chaudry families- the sadistic core of the Pakistani political paradox.

Agreeably, the law and justice system – the Supreme Court of Pakistan is an integral part of the functional governance, but laws and legal judgments do not change nor develop nations – from one crux of the problems to another disastrous page of contemporary history. This is the last resort to assert aspirations of civic societies for moving forward only if there was a respect for the laws and legal injunctions to reassert ‘Reason’ and justice over deliberate wickedness and escape from truth. Not so in Pakistan under the present circumstances.

The egomaniac military Generals (more so 11 years under General Musharaf and his friends), the nation lost precious time and opportunities for change and futuremaking. Zardari – a well known family of thugs and criminals glued to Bhutto family was the lost blow to Pakistan’s search for a new life. Had the people of Pakistan realized this fact a decade earlier, its present and future could have taken a different shape and political outcome. Asking the Supreme Court to decide on the issue of perpetuated corruption and institutionalized dishonesty of the few ruling elite – is a mockery of rationality as if there were no intelligent people left in the body of that nation to perceive change through political activism and continuous movement for change and reformation of the corrupt establishments. Is it a stage drama of sensationalism or drudgery to ignore the facts of human affairs? The BBC reporter made it known that the Generals are using the Supreme Court to oust the corrupt political leaders.

Perhaps, an alleged face-saving act to continue coming-in of US aid dollars to the pockets of the few official horse traders and political traitors. The issues of institutionalized corruption against the Zardari regime, money laundering case in a Swiss court of law, stolen wealth from the national treasury, killings of innocent civilians in collaboration with the MQM in Karachi, and dishonesty to the interests of the people of Pakistan, just to mention few. The Supreme Court as it stands will deliver the guilty verdict but would the indicted criminals quit the political powerhouse? It is fine to have a just legal judgment but it is another route to change the cross-cultural corruption and crime riddled politics. There are increasing speculations of another military take over. Do the Generals have any capacity to deliver any remedies to the beleaguered nation?

They have a history of stealing the time and resources for almost half of a century that cannot be compensated. Look how the Egyptians, Tunisian, Moroccan and Libyan have organized themselves as people’s movements and achieved freedom from the authoritarian dictators. Comparatively, Pakistani masses were better informed and educated in contemporary knowledge and expertise in global political change and development. There are thousands and thousands of well educated and intellectually credible and enriched with excellent leadership traits and capable Pakistanis living overseas who feel tormenting pain for the crippled nation and its socio-economic, political and moral downfalls. Pakistan faces a serious brain-drain problem and the overseas Pakistanis are the best suited wealth of the nation to help take it out of the muddy waters into a sustainable future.

But now the politics is a game of deaths and destruction of the national resources. Enlightened and responsible Pakistanis returning from overseas will find it hard to readjust to prevalent culture of corruption and political exploitation or to make any tangible contributions. Pakistan faces multiple unsolvable crises. The nation must be rebuild with new generational visions, enthusiasm, knowledge-based political imagination for ‘Anew’ Pakistan. The people of Pakistan are at the heart of issues to ‘Think Anew’ Pakistan and pursue it as a practical aim. Any indifference to this rationale would be an act of wickedness and political treachery to the sustainability of a viable Pakistan.

The Zardari regime and the accomplice Generals (now appearing to be at odds with the sadistic gangsters) were floating in a self-generated bubble of illusion and deceitful policies and practices to willingly join the US sponsored bogus War on Terrorism and assume that it will safeguard the interest of the people of Pakistan and enrich their individual pockets with generous cash payments of paper dollars.

In May-July, 2007, the New York Times ran headlines that “Pakistani Generals are paid to do the job.” Of course, that was the era of Pakistan under individualistic absolutism of the General Musharaf – the renegade Pakistani General who dismantled the institutions, forfeited all possible avenues of political normalcy, dismissed the Chief Justice of Pakistan and 15 other judges who opposed his illegal re-election for the presidency, killings of thousands of innocent civilians across the northwestern Pakistani tribal belts by the US drone attacks and corruption almost in all domains of civility. Musharaf had the money and backing of another psychopath warmonger George Bush waging the “crusade” against Islam and more so against Pakistan via the military invasion of Afghanistan.

American led bogus War on Terrorism – an entrenched and failing warfare without any purpose has been defeated by a handful of hit and run mujahideens across Afghanistan. The US strategists are increasingly engaged in hiring other people to fight for them- the coalition of the absurds under NATO fighting in Afghanistan and enlarging its scope onward to inside Pakistan as was the recent killing of 24 Pakistan soldiers at a border site. The cruelty of the American led bogus war on terrorism has transformed Pakistan into a non-productive beggar nation, solely looking to military and economic aid for all of its operations. The army Generals and their by-products – the ruling Bhutto family-PPP Zardari, and Nawaz Sharif (Muslim League-N), have infected the body politics of Pakistan with corruption and political tyranny, draining out all of the positive thinking and creative energies of the nation for change, development and a promising future.

Bhuttos and the Zardari gang must be tried for crimes against the people of Pakistan. If the law and justice system is still in tact, these political thugs and indicted criminals should not be allowed to hold offices of public responsibility but be held accountable in a court of law. The besieged nation MUST see itself in the mirror and learn from the dead past, to change the future course of history and to articulate a new beginning – a new system of political institutions and intelligent leadership.

Jeff Gates (“The Seduction of the Knowledge-Based Society” Dissident Voice: 01/8/2011) elaborates how the US being an occupied society by the Zionist industrial-military-political interests, craves a irrational mindset to wage proxy wars.

“The modern-day battlefield is the shared field of consciousness. Where else could consensus opinions reside? Or generally accepted truths. There too are found “field-based” phenomena such as credibility and celebrity that are also deployed to exploit thought and emotion. When waging field-based warfare, the power of association ranks near the top as effective weaponry. For example, with global public opinion the target, Zionists arranged for U.N. testimony in February 2003 by Secretary of State Colin Powell who vouched for intelligence showing that Iraq had mobile biological weapons laboratories. When the U.N. Security Council and a global television audience watched the testimony of this former four-star general, what they saw was his reputation for honesty. By the power of association, his credibility “bled over” to grant legitimacy to phony intelligence………Mental and emotional exploitation lie at the heart of how knowledge is corrupted to catalyze conflicts, manipulate behavior and influence affairs from afar. With a solid grasp of the methodology of deceit, the Knowledge Society can expose and, by design, displace those complicit in this cunning form of combat.”

Over the past three years, the PPP dominated Zardari government in collaboration with the Army Generals were engaged in deceit of corrupted normalcy – extreme rhetoric, irrational thinking and belligerent outcomes and completely divorced from the prevalent strategic-economic-political realities on the ground requiring ‘Urgent Rethinking’ and new policies and new directions to disconnect with the treacherous present. The policy and practices of self-generated fantasy did nothing good to serve the interests of the common people except to embrace increased foreign (USA-British) reliance, internal intrigues and terrorism and destruction of the capacity of the Pakistan to survive as an independent State of Muslim Nation. This mockery of political existence has made Pakistan vulnerable to sudden and accidental collapse – the ultimate death of the nation.

When pretension and stingy greed give life to politically manipulated leadership, treachery and oppression become the rule of political governance in which people are seen as the eggs and chickens, conveniently broken and slaughtered and politicians are akin to assume the above normal role play lacking legitimacy and accountability. Pakistani politics regrettably as is, a venture of intrigues, self-engineered conspiracies and dead roll calls to explain the history of this beleaguered nation. Feudal lords are the political masters, and Bhutto family with complacent army Generals, has been one of them to unfold a naïve and destructive chapter of the Pakistan’s political misfortunes. Mr. ZA Bhutto, the leader of the PPP, his daughter Benazir Bhutto, two of her brothers, all are dead but they still ruling the country by imposter Zardari as the latest example. Alive or dead, Bhutto family has been the centre of political intrigues and destructive problems in Pakistan. How irrational and untrue it seems that dead people are leading the living masses of Pakistan? The business of the dead as usual. A situation comparable to the present day Iraq under the American-British continued occupation.

Lyndon LaRouche had the intellectual courage (like well known American Professor of Law Francis Boyle who filed a formal law suit in a US Court against George Bush to be charged for Crime against Humanity and to be impeached) to spells out the course of legal actions at a Strategic seminar in Berlin on June 28, 2005 under the auspices of Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) “America’s Indispensable Role in Securing the Future of Civilization.”

“The President of the United States, George W. Bush, is clinically insane. He is not only clinically insane, but he’s clinically insane in ways which have rendered him technically impeachable. When the President of the United States, a United States whose dollar is still the denominator of the world monetary system, says not once, but repeatedly, and reasserts it defiantly against all criticism, that U.S. government bonds are merely IOUs which are intrinsically worthless, that man is clinically insane. He is irresponsible. Because, if anybody believes him, that the policy of the United States government is that its bonds are worthless, with the amount of dollar obligations outstanding around the world, as an integral part of the monetary system, the system is doomed by the fact alone….Now, the United States Constitution provides for impeachment. The intrinsic basis for impeachment is not conviction for some crime. That is not sufficient basis for impeachment, because the question of the Presidency of the United States is the question of an institution, not of a person. But, if the person who occupies that institution is clinically insane, or is otherwise incompetent to serve, that is sufficient grounds for a charge of impeachment and for his removal from office.”

Have the people of Pakistan ever thought or organized a legal movement to impeach Zardari or any of the Generals including the former dictator General Musharaf? Both have done so much harm to the interests of the common folks that its impacts will riddle for ages to come. The deprived people of Pakistan are desperate for change and a way out of the individualistic extremism of the few to endanger the integrity and freedom of Pakistan. Some could pretend that this is progressive working of a democratic craving in what was destroyed by the continuous military dictators of the past fifty years. But a reality check will clearly demonstrate that Pakistan as a whole is in worst social, economic, political and strategic conditions than what it was a decade earlier without the propelling and foreign generated War of Terrorism. General Musharaf and some of his colleagues in the armed forces traded-in the vital interests of the nation in return for personal favors and support for continued military rule from the then US administration.

Pakistan, a Muslim nation of living people is governed by physically, morally and politically dead people who cannot change the course of history nor make any difference to the present volatile politics carving a hopeless future. Islamically, dead are those who are forgetful of the memory of Allah, ignorant and arrogant people devoid of public accountability. The PPP regime under Zardari meets the set criterion requirements. The political elite sees its best interests in engaging with dead ideas and foreign strategies and buying time for good times at the expense of the nation toll of miseries and havoc social and political conditions. The overwhelming occupation of the dead minds and souls is to see how best they could exploit the common citizens or to get foreign monetary assistance to finance the self and bogus projects for change and economic development. The so called national Assemblies operate on bogus agendas irrelevant to the public interests and all of the corrupt people are part of the political gambling.

Once again, history of the British Raj over India is re-enacted through the “divide and rule” policy. The American led war is financing the terrorism to destroy Pakistan within and take control of its nuclear warheads. They have helped to make the Pakistanis helpless and desperate to kill each other for no obvious and rational purpose except money and political power. Wherever darkness prevails and corruption gets institutionalized, people lose sense of moral and intellectual thoughts, directions and priorities. The Generals, Bhuttos, Zardari and Sharifs are the instruments being used to pursue this strategic goal. In 1857, Muslims in India were defeated when the British mercenaries were successful in crippling them within by their own hired agents of influence – Mir Jaffar and Mir Sadaq and so many others. August 14, 1947, is the only time when the power was peacefully transferred by the British colonial authority to Quaid e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, otherwise, it is a bloody history full of treacherous conspiracies to change the neo-colonial erected powerhouses- from one wicked family to another corrupt and crime riddled neo-colonial affluent landlords.

The military dictators, Bhuttos, Zardari, Chaudries and Sharifs could never have come into politics unless the whole nation had lost the sense of rationality, PURPOSE and MEANING of its existence. These sadistic and cruel monsters have institutionalized chaos and fear, demoralization of a moral society and dehumanization of an intelligent nation and have transferred these naïve traits and values to the psychological-social-economic and political spheres of the mainstream thinking hub of the nation. Why should we care – many will assert at the cultural levels. Are there any concerned intellectuals and proactive political activists to safeguard the national interests of the present and future generations of Muslim Pakistan?

Leaders do lead or they are ugly imposters and stage puppets. Western democratic nations eagerly search and patronize new and creative talents and people with visionary intellectual outlooks, credibility, characteristics and merits.

This appears to be a rare commodity in Pakistani politics. To change the adverse historical trend, Pakistan is desperate for new, educated and intelligent proactive leadership to facilitate a sustainable future for the nation. In a knowledge-driven global age of rising expectations and public accountability, most developed societal politics would set criterion requirements and define standards of quality and specifications for performance in jobs/role-plays and in positions of greater public responsibility. Why are not there any written standards and defined criterion requirements for the positions of the President, Prime Ministers and Ministers and MP’s in Pakistan? Should the Constitution not define such salient features and characteristics of the vital office bearers? Could those imposters with paper and bogus educational credentials be viewed as genuine political hub of Pakistan? Not so, this is utterly nonsense and disingenuous to the moral and progressive needs of the Pakistani society. It was reported recently by the Election Commission of Pakistan that some 248 members of the Assemblies have failed to provide evidence of their required educational qualification. Should these treacherous monsters not be kicked out the Assembles and make room for re-elections of qualified people? Is there any law and justice system in the country to protect the interests of the beleaguered masses? Are the leaders not supposed to provide intellectual security and sense of direction in crises, and a visionary picture of the future to the nation they claim to represent? Under what operational system, do thugs and indicted criminals get legitimacy and approval to hold public offices for which they do not even qualify?

Once again, political garbage is piling up but who should clean it? The Supreme Court is making headlines in defining and diagnosing the political ills accumulated by the Zaradri and the ignorant Generals. Observably, societal change and reformation process do not come out of the legislative or legal stipulations but educated and proactive visionary leaders play their role in innovative ‘Thinking’ and share their proactive visions for the best of the nation. What happened to the collective conscience of the brave people? Have they taken the asylum in the rear seat and come out only to engage in shouting matches and poster displays when a national crisis situation warrants more serious ‘Thinking’ and robust action for change and stability. Would shouting in streets and crying on roads and the most stupid acts of burning flags of other nations change the course of future events? What have you accomplished out of this repeated nuisance? Have you impressed the world that you have a genuine cause for freedom from blood sucking draculas?

Have you impressed upon the informed global community that you have an honest sense of political imagination and courage for making a different and a viable political future? Your demonstration should aim at the crux of the problems – Zardari and the Generals, not the foreign powers who simply go where they find the opportunities to exploit others and rule them. Why don’t you hold Zardari and General Musharaf responsible in a court of Law and ensure they never comeback to the political domain? Zardari and Miss Bhutto stole millions and millions from the public treasury to open account in Swiss banks, money laundering schemes worldwide and bought palaces in Dubai, UK, France and Spain. Musharaf lives in $1.4 million paid mansion in London under 24/7 British security protection. Where did he get all the money? Impeach the traitors, claim your damages and punish these known criminals rather than wasting time and energies in one act superficial demonstrations. If you are open to listening and learning the facts of life, you will for sure, get the message.

The corruption knows no bound. Under the military rule, Pakistan has lost precious time and opportunities to regain honor (“Ezat”) while the Generals lead coercive politics devoid of reason and responsibility – the nation continues to live in tormenting uneasiness and being crippled by the cruel acts of sectarian killings and destruction of economic infrastructures across Pakistan. Its promising ‘Future’ was stolen by the planned schemes of personalized aggrandizement, exploitation, mismanagement and stabbing the nation body to live and survive at their mercy.

The 21st century politics and responsible planning for the future-making demands ‘Anew Thinking’ – a different mode of rationality and strategies chalked out by educated and intelligent new generation of Pakistanis, not maligned and complacent to the filthy and barbarian domain of current Pakistani politics.

The Pakistani nation must see the mirror – who they were, where they are and where they are heading to – or the Nation stands no chance for the recourse or coming out peacefully of the deadly political stunts of the few, time killing legal battles and the historical graveyards – “Mohenjadaro.”. None of these political figures (Bhuttos, Generals, Zardari and Sharifs and Chaudries) made any positive contributions toward a functional democracy or they had any knowledge of it to do so and to safeguard the integrity and security of Pakistan. History has a defined role and the present and future generations must give credence to these developments and learn to be aware of the future in waiting, and how best to make a navigational change to ensure independence and integrity of an Islamic Pakistan. If some were alive and you were to ask the Generals, Bhuttos, Zardaris and Sharifs, what went wrong with them? What made them to transgress against the poor masses of Pakistan? Why were they dismissed from the public offices? What made them to act like cruel traitors to the interest of the Pakistani people? Why could they not change their wrong ‘Thinking’? Surely, they will claim innocence and blame others. But history sees the leaders by their actions, not by their claims.

The masses wish if Pakistan could be returned to its originality – foundation of Islamic ideology and practices for peace and unity of the divided nation. Some conscientious people try to imagine and talk openly if there was another Dr. Mohammad Iqbal coming to rescue the ‘Nation’, Moahmmad Ali Jinnah- Quaid-E-Azam, another Liaqaut Ali Khan – the brilliant first PM of global prominence and credibility, Sardar AbduRub Nishtar, another Moulavi Tameezuddin from East Pakistan – the committed parliamentarian and Speaker of the National Assembly- a person of vision and integrity, Moulana Fazal ul–Haque – the lion of Bengal and pioneer of Pakistan movement, Mohammad Ali Bogra, the wise politicians and PM, Moulavi Fareed Ahmad – the dedicated intellectual from East Pakistan and MP, another FM Ayub Khan to defend the interest of the nation. Has the left-over Pakistan created any new visionary leaders of intellectual and moral credibility as were the Iqbal, Jinnah, Liaquat, Tameezuddin, Moudoodi, Al-Mushriqi and so many others living honorably in graveyards? Time lost is never regained. Is the nation awake ‘Now’?

Pakistan desperately needs change but there is no political system to facilitate durable political change on its own in a peaceful manner. Military take overs do not solve any problems but create more. One can imagine the most viable solution to the serve the interest of the people would be to remove the Zardari regime, and bring-in a non-political-non-partisan educated leadership and credible government for one to two years with the public mandate to devise a new constitution and encourage new generation educated Pakistanis to establish new political institutions and then arrange the next national elections for new assemblies and new governance.

Even if the obvious circumstances deny place for creative solutions and a new political system for change and freedom from the absurdity of the Few, but if there are mindful and active people of Reason and dedication to pursue ‘Change’, the Nation can be reformed and rebuilt out of the deliberate neglect, political mismanagement and ruins of the few corrupted rulers. Could the ‘Thinking People’ of Pakistan reverse the course of junk history and make a new beginning based on the Islamic ideology and values of the concept of Pakistan? After much destructions of the public institutions and trust, could the new generations of educated, honest and intelligent Pakistanis get a breathing space – anew opportunity denied in the past, to initiate and build new political institutions and introduce educated proactive visionary leadership and help to protect the intellectual foundation, integrity and security of the besieged nation?

Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global affairs (global security, peace and conflict resolution and with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations), and author of several publications including the latest:Arabia at Crossroads: Arab People Strive for Freedom, Peace and New Leadership. VDM 2011.

– Asian Tribune –

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Bhutto No Ghandhi – Made For TV Martyrdom

 

Bhutto No Ghandi – Made
For TV Martyrdom

Commentary on Benazir Assasination

Why does anybody think the information on B. Bhutto, assassinated yesterday, is anymore truthful than anything presented in  the major media? It’s too bad she’s dead – but it was her own doing – lap dog that she was to Washington – meeting with CFR – and falling (or maybe threatened?) for their plans for her. Musharref is a dud – he is about two things: staying alive and staying in power. Little wonder…this prick of a dictator sure lives in style on the BILLIONS that we’ve poured into Pakistan. Little wonder that there’s NO money here at home with the BILLIONS that Washington is showering the whole mid-east with.
Don’t lionize Bhutto – she is NOT what the media is presenting (latest distraction)…an aristocrat who cares for the poor of Pakistan. Hardly. She did ZERO for them during her two terms as Prime Minister – where she lived in a $50 million dollar mansion.  Ms. Bhutto comes from a very wealthy Pakistani family (feudal landlord) . She went to Radcliff – Harvard – Oxford.
The officals in Pakistan (including Prime Minister) live high on the hog amidst such dire poverty! Ms. Bhutto lived in a $50 million dollar mansion, talking about the poor. As Prime Minister she did zero. Just a fact – she’s who the media has created her to be for this MOMENT in time – and people are buying it. All a distraction.
Before becoming maudlin over her death (any death is tragic – many others died besides her) – you should take the TIME to read what Amy Goodman – Democracy Now (one trusted news source) and her interview with Tarqui Ali (Pakistani historian). Tarqui should know – NOT these talking PR heads on TV who’ve never been to Pakistan!
Also, if you want to be informed (Google) take the time to read the in-depth (great) expose that was done Jan 9,1998 – New York Times, ‘House of Graft: Tracing the Bhutto Millions’. Now there’s a story for you –$1.3 billion siphoned out of Pakistan by Bhutto (husband Asif Zardari) – documented by Swiss accounts – investigations by Interpol – France – Spain – and the UK. Ms. Bhutto’s husband was known as Mr. 10% because of the graft he took on all government contracts!
One of their homes – gated mansion community in Dubai
They have homes everywhere – including a 350 acre estate in the UK, a mansion in Dubai on the Arabian Sea, etc. It is astounding (at least to me) the intrigue and corruption (from everywhere) that goes on in these deals. Musharraf granted Bhutto, her husband, associated politicians and bureaucrats involved in this vast money-laundering (theft from Pakistan) a full Presidential pardon (amnesty) which would ‘unlock’ the countless millions they have stashed in various accounts as determined by investigations done by numerous countries. You KNOW he didn’t grant the pardons without a GREEN light from the BIG BOYS (global).
I can see how this might have been an incentive for Ms. Bhutto to return to Pakistan.  Who killed her? Hmmm – the extreme element of Muslims in this country didn’t want her (ugh, a woman – lap dog to Washington) – Musharref, maybe, but he’s enjoying his singular power too much, or maybe she needed killed, to get the people to turn against Musharref. In any event – she was STUPID for listening to Washington – and stupid for stealing from the Pakistani people.
And the poor of Pakistan – as in any land – why they were looking for a secular savior (but she wasn’t it). Just like our election theater here…how sad. A person buying a $175,000 necklace and gated mansions and estates – living in obscene luxury, is NOT a savior to the poor…sorry.  Meantime, our wag the dog goes on.
Check out the New York Times piece and Democracy Now -Dec 28, 2007, Pakistan in Turmoil: http://www.democracynow.org/2007/12/28/pakistan_in_turmoil_after_benazir_bhuttos
Also: Google Article by her niece Fatima Bhutto (LA Times reporter)
‘Aunt Benazir’s false promises’, Nov 14, 2007, Los Angeles Times
Killing Bhutto: http://www.counterpunch.org/subhani12272007.html
IF you take the time to read this you’ll be pissed off at (or should be) how superficial and contrived the infotainment you’re (we’re) being fed, 24/7/365. PS, the MidEast and Europe aren’t being given the Enquirer PR crap that we’re getting.
You have to figure if Washington was pinning their hopes on Bhutto – the whole scheme is rotten to the core. Ms. Bhutto was NO Gandhi.
-JM

 

 

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Did the United States use the Kashmir earthquake to send intelligence operatives into Pakistan?

Did the United States use the Kashmir earthquake to send intelligence operatives into Pakistan?
Monday, February 13, 2012 – 11:05 AM     
That’s the charge the National Journal’s Marc Ambinder makes in his very interesting new book on Joint Special Operations Command, coauthored with D.B. Grady.

The U.S. intelligence community took advantage of the chaos to spread resources of its own into the country. Using valid U.S. passports and posing as construction and aid workers, dozens of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives and contractors flooded in without the requisite background checks from the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency. Al-Qaeda had reconstituted itself in the country’s tribal areas, largely because of the ISI’s benign neglect. In Afghanistan, the ISI was actively undermining the U.S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai, training and recuiting for the Taliban, which it viewed as the more reliable partner. The political system was in chaos. The Pakistani army was focused on the threat from India and had redeployed away from the Afghanistan border region, the Durand line, making it porous once again. To some extent, the Bush administration had been focused on Iraq for the previous two years, content with the ISI’s cooperation in capturing senior al-Qaeda leaders, while ignoring its support of other groups tha would later become recruiting grounds for al-Qaeda.
A JSOC intelligence team slipped in alongside the CIA. The team had several goals. One was prosaic: team members were to develop rings of informants to gather targeting information about al-Qaeda terrorists. Other goals were extremely sensitive: JSOC needed better intelligence about how Pakistan tranported its nuclear weapons and wanted to pentrate the ISI. Under a secret program code-named SCREEN HUNTER, JSOC, augmented by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and contract personnel, was authorized to shadow and identify members of the ISI suspected of being sympathetic to al-Qaeda. It is not clear whether JSOC units used lethal force against these ISI officers; one official said that the goal of the program was to track terrorists through the ISI by using disinformation and psychological warfare. (The program, by then known under a different name, was curtailed by the Obama administration when Pakistan’s anxiety about a covert U.S. presence inside the country was most intense.)
Meanwhile, rotating teams of SEALs from DEVGRU Black squadron, aided by Rangers and other special operations forces, established a parallel terroris-hunting capability called VIGILANT HARVEST. They operated in the border areas of Pakistan deemed off limits to Americans, and they targeted courier networks, trainers, and facilitators. (Legally, these units would operate under the authority of the CIA any time they crossed the border.) Some of their missions were coordinated with Pakistan; others were not. As of 2006, teams of Green Berets were regularly crossing the border. Missions involved as few as three or four operators quietly trekking across the line, their movements monitored by U.S. satellites and drones locked onto the cell phones of these soldiers. (The cell phones were encrypted in such a  way that made them undetectable to Pakistani intelligence.) Twice in 2008, Pakistani officials caught wind of these missions, and in one instance, Pakistani soldiers operating in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas fired guns into the air to prevent the approach of drones.
Forward intelligence cells in Pakistan are staffed by JSOC-contracted security personnel from obscure firms with insider names such as Triple Canopy and various offshoots of Blackwater, but it is not clear whether, as Jeremy Scahill of the Nation has argued, the scale of these operations was operationally significant or that the contractors acted as hired guns for the U.S. government. Sources say that only U.S. soldiers performed “kinetic” operations; Scahill’s sources suggest otherwise. The security compartments were so small for these operations (one was known as QUIET STORM, a particularly specialized mission targeting the Pakistani Taliban in 2008) that the Command will probably be insulated from retrospective oversight about its activities. A senior Obama administration official said that by the middle of 2011, after tensions between the United States and the Pakistani government had reached an unhealthy degree of danger, all JSOC personnel except for its declared military trainers were ferreted out of the country. (They were easy to find using that same secret cell phone pinging technology.) Those who remained were called Omegas, a term denoting their temporary designation as members of the reserve force. They then joined any one of a dozen small contracting companies set up by the CIA, which turned these JSOC soldiers into civilians, for the purposes of deniability.

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Swiss ‘Return of Illicit Assets Act’: Pakistan can get billions back!

As Stated :

” Allah never Changes the state(condition) of peoples If they did not want

to Change it themselves ”

We the Pakistani’s did not want to change ourselves then Why people cry that there is ‘Corruption there is brutality and all other Problems…..in Pakistan?

”In-short we need to change ourselves to change Pakistan”

Pakistan Zindabaad

JAZAK ALLAH KHAIR…….

On October 1, the Swiss Parliament passed the historic “Return of Illicit Assets Act” (RIAA)-a significant law that will make it possible for many developing countries, like Pakistan to recover the billions of dollars shifted to the Alpine state by unscrupulous individuals and companies.

The rent-seekers and beneficiaries of loan write-offs in Pakistan have shifted funds worth billions of dollars to Switzerland. It is now possible to retrieve the looted funds if the government, under Article 25(1) of the Avoidance of Double Taxation Treaty with Switzerland, seeks information regarding Pakistanis maintaining accounts in the Alpine state as has been done by many countries in recent months.

Near home, the Indian government has already taken steps to recover hidden, ill-gotten wealth of its citizens in Swiss banks. Ever-since reports emerged of Indians having accounts in tax havens like Liechtenstein and the success of governments like the US in accessing these accounts, New Delhi has been working zealously to retrieve the funds from the Swiss banks.

A new treaty has been signed between India and Switzerland, aimed at fighting tax fraud. According to Swiss Foreign Minister, Calmy-Rey, deposits of Indians are close to $1.4 trillion in Swiss banks. Earlier, Rajya Sabha MP, Ram Jethmalani, testified before Indian supreme court that the government could not claim immunity from disclosing documents related to black money in Swiss banks, quantum of which is not less than $1,500 billion.

According to Mark V. Vlasic, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University and partner at Ward & Ward PLLC, who worked on the Haiti/Duvalier asset recovery team, “over the last 20 years, the Swiss government has returned more than $1.5 billion in assets of criminal origin-including assets from some of the most famous kleptocrats in history such as Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Carlos Salinas of Mexico. Despite these recoveries, the process of recovery has been complex and tedious-marred with international treaties and complex local laws.

To overcome these difficulties, Switzerland has now enacted RIAA, which is designed for cases involving assets frozen in Switzerland. These assets, allegedly acquired unlawfully, previously could not be returned using traditional international mutual legal assistance channels, especially where any claim of immunity by a head of sovereign states is involved. However, under the RIAA, there is a paradigm shift vis-à-vis “burden of shift” principle.

In money laundering cases, according to Mark V. Vlasic, the RIAA envisages that the Swiss government would only have to show that the funds held in Switzerland by an alleged corrupt official are significantly larger than what someone could have credibly earned in office, and that the country from which the funds originate was known to be corrupt. Then the burden of proving that the money came from legal sources would lie with the allegedly corrupt official, rather than the Swiss state. If the official could not prove a legitimate origin of his or her Swiss assets, they would be confiscated by the Swiss state.

According to the World Bank’s Stolen Asset Recovery initiative estimates, the cross-border flow of proceeds from criminal activities, corruption and tax evasion between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion per year, about half of which come from the developing and transitional economies.

Since 1997, Swiss banks have been publicly accused of accepting money from dictators like Sani Abacha (Nigerian dictator), Mobutu (President of Congo), Lansana Conte (President of Guinea), Gnassingbe Eyadema (President of Togo), Arap Moi (President of Kenya), Omar Bongo (President of Gabon), Obiang Nguema (President of Equitorial Guinea), Blaise Compaore (President of Burkina Faso), Denis Sassou Nguesso (President of Congo-Brazzaville), Eduardo dos Santos (sitting President of Angola), Sadam Hussein (hanged Iraqi President), Jerry Rawling (Ghana’s dictator), Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines), Baby Doc Duvalier (dictator of Haiti), Raul Salinas (Mexico), Hosni Mubarak (Egypt), Yoweri Museveni (President of Uganda), Augusto Pinochet (late Chilean dictator), Muammar Gaddafi (Libya) and Ibrahim Babangida (Nigerian military ruler) without due diligence and without questioning the source of their wealth.

According to a press report: “After five years of foot dragging, Nigeria got back $700 million of its plundered wealth back from Switzerland and Philippines recovered its $684 million looted by Ferdinand Marcos. After 18 years of litigation with the Swiss authorities, the Filipino authorities had finally managed to get their money back. Furthermore, between August 2001 and 2004, Peru recovered nearly over $180 million stolen by its former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos from several jurisdictions, including Switzerland, Cayman Islands and the United States.

In May 2007, an agreement between the governments of the United States, Switzerland and Kazakhstan allowed for the repatriation of $84 million denied for many years. While it took Mexico some 12 years to witness the repatriation of $74 million of the $110 million stolen by its ruler Raul Salinas, the governments of Mali and Argentina have also recently received $2.5 million and $4.5 million respectively from Switzerland”.

In 2009, Europe and the United States forced Switzerland to give up its age-old bank secrecy. They extracted promises from the placid Alpine nation to help fight tax evasion. That, together with a bitter US tax fraud probe into wealth management giant UBS, opened cracks into the rock-solid reputation of the $2 trillion Swiss wealth management industry. UBS paid a hefty $780 million fine to settle the US tax fraud charges in February 2009 and agreed, in accordance with the Swiss government, later that year to disclose Swiss bank data belonging to around 4,500 of its US clients. The FBR tax officials till today have not followed the footsteps of their counterparts in IRS.

In the wake of pressure from all sides, Berne swiftly devised a strategy to keep Switzerland on the global financial map. It negotiated deals with large European neighbours allowing them access to hidden money in Switzerland of their citizens. According to some estimates, in 2009 alone “the Swiss banks held $722.4 billion of undeclared European assets.”

According to Boston Consulting Group, Switzerland singularly manages nearly one third of global offshore wealth. European assets make up about 50 percent of foreign assets held in Switzerland. A large portion of undeclared money, known as “schwarzgeld” or black money, originated from Germany and Italy and was smuggled into the country starting in the 1960s after income tax were started rising in Europe. Italy having an endemic tax evasion problem acted wisely recently by offering its citizens a generous tax amnesty-it brought nearly 100 billion euros back home. The Germans, however, are not comfortable with any such deal that allow tax cheats to get scot free by just paying a few millions.

According to the 2010 Private Banking Survey by consultancy McKinsey, Switzerland last year experienced net outflows worth 1 percent of its private banking assets. Those were mainly attributable to transfers by scared European clients. Switzerland continued to enjoy inflows from Asia, Latin America, Russia and Eastern Europe, confirming its global attraction as a wealth management centre, McKinsey said. Some of Switzerland’s oldest private banks, date back to more than 200 years ago and its polyglot private bankers are used to trading in any currency and any product.

The influential and rich Pakistanis, who are mostly crook, corrupt and tax evaders, have hidden accounts in Switzerland. The enormous money looted by indomitable civil-military bureaucracy and greedy businessmen-cum-politicians is also parked in Swiss banks. If advantage of the RIAA is taken, they will not be able to hide their untaxed Swiss bank accounts any more. Pakistani tax authorities can be directed by the apex court to seek information under Avoidance of Double Taxation and Exchange of Tax Information with the Swiss government.

After passage of RIAA, Switzerland cannot restrict its administrative assistance to cases of presumed tax fraud (which involves the falsification of documents). It is legally bound to provide information where tax evasion is suspected – in other words, where money not declared to national tax authorities has been deposited in a Swiss bank.

Pakistani corrupt officials and politicians have been transferring huge amounts of money to Swiss banks. This money, generated through illegal activities by avaricious politicians, corrupt bureaucrats, Jihadi-terrorist-drug-for-arms networks and greedy businessmen, was never disclosed to tax department. Pakistan is facing a grim challenge of measuring and countering enormous revenue leakages and black money-its size estimated to be three times the regular economy. Till today, no effort appears to have been made by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Federal Investigating Agency (FIA), Anti-Narcotics Force (AFN) or Narcotics Control Board to conduct an in-depth study to quantify the magnitude of black money and amounts shifted to Swiss banks. According to an estimate, it is not less than 200 billion dollars-four times the external debt of Pakistan.

According to an estimate, the money lying in Swiss banks of Pakistanis is to the tune of US $200 billion, which appears plausible as parallel economy is growing at an alarming rate of 20% per annum. Every fifth rupee transacted in Pakistan is black. The volume of black money generated in the year 2008-09 alone was not less than US $40 billion. This is still not final. It does not account for kickbacks in arms deals, foreign trade, smuggling and foreign exchange racketeering, apart from trade in narcotics and other criminal activities by terrorist Jihadi outfits. According to various studies, the underground money generated through smuggling in goods and narcotics trade alone is estimated at US $50 billion.

Pakistani policy-makers must realise that a sound development strategy seeks to reduce the size of the informal economy and bring into the open resources that lie in the form of black money. Apart from such mechanisms as foreign exchange and tax amnesties; and exercises such as demonetisations, taxation is used as a tool to tap the resources inherent in these areas. According to a conservative estimate, tax evaders in Pakistan annually deprive the country of revenue of over US $10 billion-but the government, instead of putting them behind bars, encourages their unlawful activities.

Our politicians, policy-makers and tax managers during the last many years have miserably failed to tap untaxed money despite borrowing a whopping US $100 million for Tax Administration Reforms Programme (TARP) – every year billions of rupees are transferred from Pakistan to Zurich, Dubai, Johannesburg and elsewhere.

A survey carried out by a reputed Lahore-based academic institution a few years back, as a part of tax reformation drive, concluded that out of every Rs 100 taxable amount, the highest amount of Rs 38, of course, goes to the taxpayer, a typical Pakistani businessman.

The taxman, an officer in income tax department, gets Rs 16 for his services to the taxpayer in helping him to conceal his real income. The middleman, who is a tax practitioner, advisor or a lawyer gets Rs 10. If these estimates are taken as true, then the annual national tax loss for fiscal year 2009-2010 was not less than Rs 500 billion-half of which is transferred to Swiss banks.

It is not possible to determine the precise amount of revenue loss and size of black money or shifting of money abroad. Revenue loss on account of smuggling of Afghan transit trade alone, as estimated by the World Bank, amounted to US $35 billion. Apart from direct monetary costs of corruption, both Pakistani and international literature pinpoint many other costs, such as loss of government credibility, spread of injustice, distortions in resource allocations and loss of foreign and local investment.

When the presence of black money is so apparent, its criminal accumulation and generation are not revealed and the offenders punished, is a question which continues to baffle honest citizens. They ask, whether it is on account of lack of political will, or rampant corruption, or collusion of tax dodgers and corrupt tax administrators, or the weak political system, or the ineffectiveness together with defectiveness of laws, or the pervasive stubborn indifference of the citizens towards their duties?

The ugliest face of black money emerges in the corridors of power, political as well as administrative. Pakistan is passing through the worst financial crisis of its history, ie, the crisis of resources manifested in the huge budgetary deficits. After mass devastation caused by unprecedented floods, we need extra revenues of Rs 500 billion for rehabilitations of the afectees. Revenue has to be collected from the rich and mighty. Money looted by them-parked in Swiss banks-should be brought back using the unique nature of the RIAA.

The government, therefore, needs to introduce asset-seizure legislation to confiscate the mammoth reservoir of the untaxed black money-huge chunk of which is lying in the Swiss banks. It is now time to seek information from Swiss government as has been done by India, the US, EU countries and many other governments in Asia and Africa. In case swift action is not taken to seize money and property arising out of corruption, tax evasion, narco-arms-trade and other unlawful activities, the day is not far when our tolerance towards ill-gotten wealth leads to self-annihilation.

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$200 BILLION STOLEN FROM PAKISTAN:Unearthing hidden bank accounts

No tax reforms can succeed in Pakistan unless the issue of underground economy is tackled first – urgently and effectively.Failure of the FBR to nab evaders is bringing more hardship for the common people of Pakistan – the rich and mighty are not paying taxes and tax officials in the frenzy of achieving tax targets are shifting the incidence on the poor and the vulnerable middle-class.

Those enjoying invincible money power (generator and protector of the underground economy) conveniently remain outside the ambit of the tax net.It is high time that the government gives up its policies of appeasement towards the plunderers of the national wealth and tax evaders.

Causes of corruption and rent-seeking activities have to be destroyed with full force if we have to survive as a nation.

The tax-to-GDP ratio can only be improved (at least 15% of GDP) if the entire informal economy is taxed.

Once the State demonstrates by action its determination to crack down on the hidden accounts (both inside and outside the country) and starts spending taxes for the welfare of society, the nation would certainly reciprocate by paying their dues diligently and honestly.

This is the only way to fight corruption, promote a tax culture, control and eliminate losses of tax revenue in Pakistan.

 

 

Time and again we have written in these columns and elsewhere that our economic survival now lies in collecting taxes from the rich and mighty – our real tax potential is around Rs 8 trillion (see our article A plan for raising revenue, The News, November 13, 2011).

Secondly, the taxes collected should be utilised for the betterment of society.

All the political parties, it was suggested by us in the Democratising of political parties, The News, July 17, 2011, should first of all make public, the tax and asset declarations of their office holders.

We further suggested that:”For political parties there should be a provision in the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 making it incumbent on them to file their tax returns.

Their income should be exempt from tax, provided they file returns voluntarily and present audited accounts for scrutiny.

Such provisions exist in tax laws of all the major democracies.

In India not only does this law exists [section 13A of Income Tax Act, 1961] but recently Chief Election Commissioner of India, S Y Qureshi, asked the Indian Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to scrutinise accounts submitted by the political parties.

Earlier, the Central Information Commission of India directed the Income Tax Department to disclose in the public interest the details of the donors given by the political parties in their tax returns.

With this information in the public domain, the Commission said, there would be transparency in the funding of both the small and big parties, besides checking the flow of black money in the electoral process”.All major countries of the world are now taking stringent steps to fight the menace of black money and tax evasion.

In their last meeting, G20 governments unanimously agreed to a multilateral convention to tackle tax evasion more effectively.

The ‘Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters’, they agreed, offers a wide range of tools for cross-border tax co-operation.

It includes the automatic exchange of information, multilateral simultaneous tax examinations and international assistance in the collection of tax due.

At the same time, the Convention imposes safeguards to protect the confidentiality of the information exchanged.

The instrument reinforces international co-operation to target tax evasion by both individuals and corporations.

“Now that the G20 countries have led by example, we expect other countries to sign the Convention, said Jeffrey Owens, Director of the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration.”As the membership expands, so the effectiveness of the Convention will increase.

Over the coming months we will be working with the developing countries so that they will rapidly be in a position to sign the Convention,” he added.It is worthwhile to mention that the international drive against offshore tax havens has so far reaped nearly 14 billion Euros from would-be tax evaders.

Some 100,000 taxpayers in the 20 most important economies surveyed by the OECD have revealed previously undetected offshore assets in the last two years, allowing tax authorities to collect the equivalent of nearly $19 billion.

“As cash-strapped governments look to pay down their deficits, this will make a substantial contribution to fiscal consolidation,” OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria said at the opening of a two-day meeting on tax transparency.”Just as important – most of the additional revenue has been secured from citizens trying to evade taxes,” he added.

“At a time when many governments are forced to ask their citizens to accept higher taxes and reduced public services, everyone must pay their fair share.”Italy has so far been the biggest beneficiary of the crackdown.

A scheme there to promote voluntary disclosure of offshore assets had helped bring in additional tax revenues of 5.6 billion euros, the OECD said.

A similar scheme in the United States helped recover 2.7 billion dollars from more than 30,000 taxpayers.

Germany had raised additional tax revenues of 1.8 billion euros from as many as 30,000 taxpayers.

The OECD said that the number of requests for tax information from jurisdictions previously considered to be tax havens had surged from nearly zero into the thousands, with Switzerland alone getting hundreds of requests since 2009.

A few days back, the Indian income tax department in Mumbai conveyed its determination to regularise the income disclosed by Indians named in the list of unreported account holders with the HSBC Bank Geneva, by issuing notices under section 148 of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

A notice under Section 148 of the IT Act is usually served when tax department detects income that has escaped the tax net.

The tax department of Pakistan is also vested with the same powers to issue notice or amend the completed assessments for the previous five years, if it has reasons to suspect that the taxpayer did not make full disclosure of his income in the returns.

However, the FBR is just sleeping over the matter despite many articles by us on this issue during the last many months.

The Indian tax department has already devised a comprehensive strategy to deal with the cases of account holders with the HSBC Bank who failed to declare the same in their tax returns.

Till today, it has obtained 17 declarations from Indians having unreported income with the HSBC Geneva.

In some cases, the disclosures are to the tune of Indian rupees 30,000 million.

All of these disclosures are voluntary declarations made after the tax officials confronted the Indian account holders with the information passed on to it by the French government, which in turn, had got it from a former employee of the bank in Geneva in 2008.

In most cases, disclosures were made by revising the returns.

The department also gave verbal assurance that the details would not be shared with other agencies.

The Indian tax department maintains that the information obtained from the French government could not be handed over to other enforcement agencies in India in view of the tax treaties between countries which bar transfer of information to other agencies.

A similar position exists between Pakistan and France as well as Switzerland.

In India, though the talks for exchange of data was initiated through diplomatic channels, the information ultimately came via Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement which stipulates that data passed under the treaty should be used only for the purpose for which it was sought and not made public.

A senior tax official of India told the Press that the Supreme Court was now in possession of the details of Indians having accounts with Liechtenstein banks.

The tax department had submitted the data after the court sought an explanation for not making the list public.

In response, the department shared the list with the apex court along with a copy of a letter from the German government asking the department not to make the data public.

According to The Indian Express, investigators have already mopped up a “massive amount” – running into “hundreds of crores” – as unpaid taxes from among the 700 numbered bank accounts held by Indians in the HSBC Bank in Geneva in the ongoing scrutiny of what is considered a sprawling black money trail.

In fact, Rs 400 million has been recovered from the Delhi-based account holders and Rs 600 million from just one account holder in Chennai alone.

As reported first by The Indian Express (August 8, 2011), it was in July that the French authorities passed on the details of these accounts to India.

Of the total list, 70 account holders were based in Delhi and 18 of them were scrutinised while six account holders volunteered to pay their tax dues.

As we mentioned earlier (Swiss ‘Return of Illicit Assets Act’: we can get billions back, Business Recorder, October 1, 2010), the Swiss Parliament passed on 1 October 2001 the historic “Return of Illicit Assets Act” (RIAA) – a significant law making it possible for many developing countries, like Pakistan to recover the billions shifted to the Alpine state by unscrupulous individuals and companies.

The rent-seekers (especially kickbacks in arms deals and beneficiaries of loan write-offs in Pakistan) have shifted funds worth billions to Switzerland.

We can retrieve these untaxed funds if the government, under Article 25(1) of the Avoidance of Double Taxation Treaty with Switzerland, seeks information regarding Pakistanis maintaining accounts in the Alpine state as has been done by USA, UK, Germany, Italy, India and many countries in recent months.

Ever since reports emerged of Indians having accounts in tax havens like Liechtenstein and elsewhere, New Delhi has been working zealously to retrieve the funds from the Swiss banks.

But our government has shown no interest till today.

India has signed a fresh treaty with Switzerland, aimed at taking the tax evaders to task.

Earlier, Rajya Sabha MP, Ram Jethmalani, testified before Indian Supreme Court that the government could not claim immunity from disclosing documents related to black money in Swiss banks.

According to Mark V.

Vlasic, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University and partner at Ward & Ward PLLC, who worked on the Haiti/Duvalier asset recovery team, “over the last 20 years, the Swiss government returned more than $1.5 billion in assets of criminal origin-including assets from some of the most famous kleptocrats in history such as Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Carlos Salinas of Mexico.

Despite these recoveries, the process of recovery has been complex and tedious – marred with international treaties and complex local laws.

To overcome these difficulties, Switzerland has now enacted RIAA, which is designed for cases involving assets frozen in Switzerland.

These assets, allegedly acquired unlawfully, previously could not be returned using traditional international mutual legal assistance channels, especially where any claim of immunity by a head of sovereign states is involved.

However, under the RIAA, there is a paradigm shift vis-à-vis the “burden of proof” principle.

In money laundering cases, according to Mark V.

Vlasic, the RIAA envisages that the Swiss government would only have to show that the funds held in Switzerland by an alleged corrupt official are significantly larger than what someone could have credibly earned in office, and that the country from which the funds originate was known to be corrupt.

Then the burden of proving that the money came from legal sources would lie with the allegedly corrupt official, rather than the Swiss state.

If the official could not prove a legitimate origin of his or her Swiss assets, they would be confiscated by the Swiss state.

According to the World Bank’s Stolen Asset Recovery initiative estimates, the cross-border flow of proceeds from criminal activities, corruption and tax evasion between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion per year, about half of which came from the developing and transitional economies.

Since 1997, Swiss banks have been publicly accused of accepting money from dictators like Sani Abacha (Nigerian dictator), Mobutu (President of Congo), Lansana Conte (President of Guinea), Gnassingbe Eyadema (President of Togo), Arap Moi (President of Kenya), Omar Bongo (President of Gabon), Obiang Nguema (President of Equitorial Guinea), Blaise Compaore (President of Burkina Faso), Denis Sassou Nguesso (President of Congo-Brazzaville), Eduardo dos Santos (sitting President of Angola), Sadam Hussein (hanged Iraqi President), Jerry Rawling (Ghana’s dictator), Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines), Baby Doc Duvalier (dictator of Haiti), Raul Salinas (Mexico), Hosni Mubarak (Egypt), Yoweri Museveni (President of Uganda), Augusto Pinochet (late Chilean dictator), late Moammar Qadhafi (Libya) and Ibrahim Babangida (Nigerian military ruler) without due diligence and without questioning the source of their wealth.

According to a press report: “After five years of foot dragging, Nigeria got back $700 million of its plundered wealth back from Switzerland and Philippines recovered its $684 million looted by Ferdinand Marcos.

After 18 years of litigation with the Swiss authorities, the Filipino authorities had finally managed to get their money back.

Furthermore, between August 2001 and 2004, Peru recovered nearly over $180 million stolen by its former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos from several jurisdictions, including Switzerland, Cayman Islands and the United States.

In May 2007, an agreement between the governments of the United States, Switzerland and Kazakhstan allowed for the repatriation of $84 million denied for many years.

While it took Mexico some 12 years to witness the repatriation of $74 million of the $110 million stolen by its ruler Raul Salinas, the governments of Mali and Argentina have also recently received $2.5 million and $4.5 million respectively from Switzerland”.

 

 

In 2009, Europe and the United States forced Switzerland to give up its age-old bank secrecy.

They extracted promises from the placid Alpine nation to help fight tax evasion.

That, together with a bitter US tax fraud probe into wealth management giant UBS, opened cracks into the rock-solid reputation of the $2 trillion Swiss wealth management industry.

UBS paid a hefty $780 million fine to settle the US tax fraud charges in February 2009 and agreed, in accordance with the Swiss government, later that year to disclose Swiss bank data belonging to around 4,500 of its US clients.

The FBR tax officials, till today, have not followed in the footsteps of their counterparts in the IRS.

 

In the wake of pressure from all sides, Berne swiftly devised a strategy to keep Switzerland on the global financial map.

It negotiated deals with large European neighbours allowing them access to hidden money in Switzerland of their citizens.

According to some estimates, in 2009 alone “the Swiss banks held $722.4 billion of undeclared European assets.” According to Boston Consulting Group, Switzerland singularly manages nearly one third of the global offshore wealth.

European assets make up about 50% of foreign assets held in Switzerland.

A large portion of undeclared money, known as “schwarzgeld” or black money, originated from Germany and Italy and was smuggled into the country starting in the 1960s after income tax rates started rising in Europe.

Italy having an endemic tax evasion problem acted wisely recently by offering its citizens a generous tax amnesty – it brought nearly 100 billion Euros back home.

Swiss bank Credit Suisse has already begun informing American clients suspected of tax evasion that it would soon be passing their details on to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

In a notification letter, the bank told clients that it had recently received a formal request for help from the IRS, “which believes that thousands of wealthy Americans are evading taxes by placing their money in Swiss banks”.

The IRS is seeking information with regard to accounts of certain US persons owned through a domiciliary company (as beneficial owners) that have been maintained with Credit Suisse AG,” said the November 2, 2011 letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters recently.

It is not clear how many clients have received the letter, which offers them two options.

They can either agree to let the Swiss tax authorities have their account information and pass it on the IRS, or they can hire a lawyer in Switzerland and fight the process.

Switzerland is currently trying to strike a deal with the US to cover its banking sector. 

Possible tax agreement between Switzerland and Greece is in the pipeline similar to the ones Switzerland signed a few months back with Germany and the United Kingdom.

The aim is to regularise assets held by Greek taxpayers in Swiss bank accounts in the past as well as to introduce a tax at source on future investment income.

Switzerland would forward the tax revenue to the Greek authorities on an anonymous basis.

In addition, mutual market access for financial services should be improved.

Some estimates have put the total amount of Greek assets in Switzerland at SFr 24.2 billion (euros 19.7 billion), with all but SFr 200 million being undeclared.

However, other estimates have put the sum at nearly ten times this amount.

According to the 2010 Private Banking Survey by consultancy McKinsey, Switzerland last year experienced net outflows worth 1% of its private banking assets.

Those were mainly attributable to transfers by scared European clients.

Switzerland continued to enjoy inflows from Asia, Latin America, Russia and Eastern Europe, confirming its global attraction as a wealth management centre, McKinsey said.

Some of Switzerland’s oldest private banks date back to more than 200 years ago and its polyglot private bankers are used to trading in any currency and any product.

The influential and rich Pakistanis – mostly the crook, corrupt and tax evaders – have hidden accounts in Switzerland.

The enormous money looted by indomitable civil-military bureaucracy and greedy businessmen-cum-politicians is also parked in mainly Swiss banks.

If advantage of the RIAA is taken, they will not be able to hide their untaxed Swiss bank accounts any more.

Pakistani tax authorities can be directed by the apex court to seek information under Avoidance of Double Taxation and Exchange of Tax Information with the Swiss government.

After passage of the RIAA, Switzerland cannot restrict its administrative assistance to cases of presumed tax fraud (which involves the falsification of documents).

It is legally bound to provide information where tax evasion is suspected – in other words, where money not declared to national tax authorities has been deposited in a Swiss bank.

Pakistani corrupt businessmen, officials and politicians have been transferring huge amounts of money to Swiss banks.

This money, generated through illegal activities by avaricious politicians, corrupt bureaucrats, Jihadi-terrorist-drug-for-arms networks and greedy businessmen, was never disclosed to the tax department.

Pakistan is facing a grim challenge of measuring and countering enormous revenue leakages and black money – its size estimated to be three times the regular economy.

Till today, no effort appears to have been made by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Federal Investigating Agency (FIA), Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) or Narcotics Control Board to conduct an in-depth study to quantify the magnitude of black money and amounts shifted to Swiss banks.

According to an estimate, it is not less than 200 billion dollars – four times the external debt of Pakistan.

 

 

According to an estimate, the parallel economy in Pakistan is growing at an alarming rate of 20% per annum.

Every fifth rupee transacted in Pakistan is black.

The volume of black money generated in the year 2008-09 alone was not less than US $40 billion.

This is still not final.

It does not account for kickbacks in arms deals, foreign trade, smuggling and foreign exchange racketeering, apart from trade in narcotics and other criminal activities by terrorist Jihadi outfits.

According to various studies, the underground money generated through smuggling in goods and narcotics trade alone is estimated at US $50 billion.

Pakistani policy-makers must realise that a sound development strategy seeks to reduce the size of the informal economy and bring into the open resources that lie in the form of black money.

Apart from such mechanisms as foreign exchange and tax amnesties; and exercises such as demonetisations, taxation is used as a tool to tap the resources inherent in these areas.

According to a conservative estimate, tax evaders in Pakistan annually deprive the country of revenue of over US $10 billion – but the government, instead of putting them behind bars, encourages their unlawful activities.

Our politicians, policy-makers and tax managers during the last many years have miserably failed to tap untaxed money despite borrowing a whopping US $100 million for Tax Administration Reforms Programme (TARP) – every year billions of rupees are transferred from Pakistan to Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Zurich, Johannesburg and elsewhere.

 

 

A survey carried out by a reputed Lahore-based academic institution a few years back, as a part of tax reformation drive, concluded that out of every Rs 100 taxable amount, the highest amount of Rs 38, of course, goes to the taxpayer, a typical Pakistani businessman.

The taxman, an officer in income tax department, gets Rs 16 for his services to the taxpayer in helping him to conceal his real income.

The middleman, who is a tax practitioner, advisor or a lawyer, gets Rs 10.

If these estimates are correct, then the annual national tax loss for fiscal year 2009-2010 was not less than Rs 500 billion – half of which was reportedly transferred to Swiss banks.

 

 

It is not possible to determine the precise amount of revenue loss and size of black money or shifting of money abroad.

Revenue loss on account of smuggling through Afghan transit trade alone, as estimated by the World Bank, amounted to US $35 billion.

Apart from direct monetary costs of corruption, both Pakistani and international literature pinpoint many other costs, such as loss of government credibility, spread of injustice, distortions in resource allocations and loss of foreign and local investment.

When the presence of black money is so apparent, its criminal accumulation and generation are not revealed and the offenders punished, is a question which continues to baffle honest citizens.

They ask, whether it is on account of lack of political will, or rampant corruption, or collusion of tax dodgers and corrupt tax administrators, or the weak political system, or the ineffectiveness together with defectiveness of laws, or the pervasive stubborn indifference of the citizens towards their duties?

 

 

The ugliest face of black money emerges in the corridors of power, political as well as administrative.

Pakistan is passing through its worst financial crisis, ie, the crisis of resources manifested in the huge budgetary deficits.

After mass devastation caused by unprecedented floods, we need extra revenues of Rs 500 billion for rehabilitation of the flood-affected people.

Revenue has to be collected from the rich and mighty.

Money looted by them – parked in offshore banks and in Swiss banks – should be brought back using the unique nature of the RIAA.

 

 

The government, therefore, needs to introduce asset-seizure legislation to confiscate the mammoth reservoir of the untaxed black money – a huge chunk of which is lying in the Swiss banks.

It is now time to seek information from the Swiss government as has been done by many other countries.

In case swift action is not taken to seize money and property arising out of corruption, tax evasion, narco-arms-trade and other unlawful activities, the day is not far when our tolerance towards ill-gotten wealth will lead to self-annihilation. 

(The writers, tax lawyers, are Adjunct Professors at Lahore University of Management Sciences)

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