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Posted by ali rehan munir in Dictators Gallery on April 21st, 2013
Posted by admin in IN MEMORY OF SIKHS MARTYRED IN GOLDEN TEMPLE on April 21st, 2013
WHY SIKHS SHOULDN’T CELEBRATE INDIAN INDEPENDENCE
15 August marks India’s Independence Day and prolongs the suffering of the Sikhs. We are clear about our nationhood, but it is denied by the Indian State and the Indian political class which are not prepared to allow us basic rights.
Sikh sacrifices for freedom
Prior to independence Sikhs were less than 1.5% of the population, but their contribution to the freedom struggle was immense:
Sikhs betrayed and promises broken
India’s founding fathers gave numerous solemn promises that the Sikhs freedom and dignity would be safeguarded. Jawahar lal Nehru said that the brave Sikhs of Punjab are entitled to special consideration. I see nothing wrong in an area set up in the north of India wherein the Sikhs can also experience the glow of freedom. These promises were conveniently forgotten after independence and the Sikhs were dismissively told by the same Nehru that the circumstances had now changed
Known for his charisma as well as his knowledge of the scripture, history, and mythology of Sikhism, Sant Jarnail Singh was asked by the Congress Party under Giani Zail Singh, who later became the president of India, to align with them in their effort to break the hold of the Akālī Dal on rank-and-file Sikhs. Sant Jarnail Singh obliged, but in the process he became increasingly aware of the role he might play in Sikh history. By setting himself as an example, Sant Jarnail Singh hoped to pull the Sikh community back to its traditions of bravery and martyrdom. He argued against the Akālī Party’s policy of negotiating their demands peacefully with the central government in Delhi, insisting that political power in the Punjab was a Sikh right, not a gift of the Delhi regime. Sant Jarnail Singh succeeded in convincing a large number of rural Sikhs that the politics of the Akālī Dal were humiliating for them.
In July 1982, he moved to the Golden Temple (Darbār Sāhib) in Amritsar and began preaching that Sikhs should initiate a battle for creation of a separate state of Khalistan. He gathered a considerable following of like-minded militants and stockpiled weapons. In 1984 Prime Minister Indira Gandhiordered Indian troops to attack the Darbār Sāhib complex, and in the confrontation that followed, hundreds of people were killed, including Sant Jarnail Singh. For many Sikhs, he died the death of a martyr. Especially in the Sikh diaspora, the hope of Khalistan remained a central feature of Sikh life.
Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru gave the Sikhs assurances that after India achieves political freedom no Constitution shall be framed by the majority community unless it is freely acceptable to the Sikhs. This promise was repeated throughout the period up to independence. When the Constitution was produced in 1950 it failed to deliver any safeguards or political rights for the Sikhs as a people or nation. The Sikhs therefore refused to sign the Constitution and have never accepted it. Article 25 even denies Sikhism, the fifth largest faith in the world, separate recognition as a religion an affront that is widely seen as a deliberate act of suppression of the Sikhs.
<iframe width=”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/fAh1Q10cImU” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>The Indian authorities have systematically discriminated against the Sikhs since 1947 and subverted or suppressed all legitimate political demands for greater autonomy. The Anandpur Sahib Resolution of 1973 set out the basis on which the Sikhs were prepared to accept a political union within India, as a federal state. This demand for internal self-determination was pursued through decades of peaceful protest and attempts at negotiation with the central government. The demands were never seriously considered and given the history of the conflict between the Sikhs and India since 1984, this would now be too little too late.
In the last 30 years the Indian authorities have unleashed a rein of terror through gross violation of human rights of Sikhs in an attempt to extinguish the calls for freedom and Sikh independence. In June 1984 the Indian army attacked the Golden Temple Complex and 125 other Sikh Gurdwaras in Punjab and massacred tens of thousands of innocent Sikh pilgrims. This laid the foundation stone for an independent sovereign Sikh State, Khalistan.
In November 1984 tens of thousands of innocent Sikhs were massacred in Delhi and over 130 other cities throughout India by well-orchestrated mobs under the direct supervision of senior Indian politicians and officials.
Over 250,000 Sikhs have been murdered and disappeared since 1984. Many Sikh political prisoners still languish in Indian jails without charge or trial and others have been falsely charged and sentenced to death by hanging. Illegal detention and torture of Sikhs is common place and well documented by independent human rights organisations.
Sikhs first secured political power in the form of an independent state in 1710, after suffering centuries of foreign invasions and alien domination. The larger sovereign Sikh state was established in 1799 and was recognised by all the world powers. The Sikhs, after the two Anglo-Sikh wars, lost their kingdom and the Punjab came under British rule in 1849. However, in giving up power Sikhs were party to several Treaties with the British.
After independence Sikhs have been denied Sikh Personal Law. Hindu Laws has been forced on Sikhs be it be the marriage act or income Tax.Sikhs marriages are registered under hindu act and while filling income tax Sikhs as HUF<hindu undived family>
Courtesy
http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Sikhs_%26_Indian_Independence
Map of Khĝlistĝn
Flag of Khalistan
Currency of Khalistan
Khĝlistĝn (Punjabi: ਖਾਲਿਸਤਾਨ) (lit. “pure-land”) is the name given to the proposed nation-state encompassing the present Indian state of Punjab and all Punjabi-speaking areas around its borders. A movement for Khalistan was precipitated when the Indian Army attacked the Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) in June 1984. The attack, which had been planned several months beforehand was carried out during one of the most important anniversaries in the Sikh calendar. The army’s refusal to allow the many Sikhs who had gathered at the Harmandir Sahib, in the days shortly before the anniversary on the 16 of June (when Sikhs commemorate the martyrdom of their first martyr, the fifth Guru, Guru Arjan Devs) resulted in an extremely high number of Sikh casualties.[1] The army operation was followed by wholesale killings of Sikh males between the ages of 15 and 35 in Punjab’s villages.[2] These events, together with organized massacre of Sikhs in India’s major cities in November 1984, and daily terror families subsequently experienced in Punjab’s villages gave rise to resistance.[3] A Sarbat Khalsa (general congregation of the Sikh people) was convened at the Akal Takht, the Sikh seat of temporal authority in Amritsar, on January 26, 1986. The gathering passed a resolution (gurmattĝ) favoring the independence of Punjab (Khalistan).[4] Khalistan is envisaged as a secular state, rejecting theocracy and espousing a liberal form of nationalism in which all communities may live as equals.[5]
Khalistan – If Before Partition
The status of the Sikhs as a legitimate third-party to the sovereignty of British India, along with Hindus and Muslims, and the role played by the Sikhs to end British colonialism are important factors that have contributed to the discourse on Khalistan. As erstwhile sovereigns of Punjab, the Sikhs—who constituted about 1.1 percent of the population of British-India[6]—played a disproportionate role in the struggle to free the subcontinent of British colonialism. The table below summarizes the Sikh contribution in the freedom movement. The data reflects Sikhs serving prison sentences, being deported to nearby islands in exile, facing capital punishment and enlisting themselves in the Indian National Army that was organized to oppose the British.
| Type | All Communities | Sikhs | Percentage |
| Prison term over 1-year | 2,125 | 1,550 | 75% |
| Deported | 2,646 | 2,147 | 80% |
| Indian National Army | 20,000 | 12,000 | 60% |
With the possibility of an end to British colonialism in sight, the Sikh leadership became concerned about the future of the Sikhs. The Sikhs and the Muslims had unsuccessfully claimed separate representation for their communities in the Minto-Morley Scheme of 1909.[8] The Congress, led by predominantly a Hindu majority, denied Sikhs their separate identity and labeled them as a sect of Hinduism. Even though the Sikhs occupied 19.1 percent of the seats in the Punjab Legislature, in a document on the future of British-India in response to the Simon Commission in 1927, the Congress leader Motilal Nehru defined the future of the subcontinent in Hindu and Muslim terms.[9] Nehru’s report evoked strong condemnation from Sikh leaders.
Diarchy was introduced in 1935, guaranteeing a majority for Muslims in Punjab, which changed Hindu attitudes towards the Sikh demand for reasons of political expediency. The Hindus aimed to reduce the Muslim majority in the Punjab Legislative Council.[10] At this time, the Hindus not only accepted Sikhs as a distinct community, but also supported the Sikh demand for adequate political representation. In December 1929, Sikh leaders were also assured by Motilal Nehru and Mohandas Gandhi that Congress would accept no political situation for the future of British India unless it satisfied the Sikhs.[11] Accordingly, the Congress passed a resolution during its Lahore session:
“…as the Sikhs in particular, and Muslims and other minorities in general have expressed dissatisfaction over the solution of communal questions proposed in the Nehru Report, this Congress assures the Sikhs, the Muslims and other minorities that no solution thereof in any future constitution will be acceptable to the Congress that does not give full satisfaction to the parties concerned.[12]
A Quote from Gurbilas Patshahi 10 which is contaminated today
Gandhi stated that the resolution was adopted by the Congress to satisfy the Sikh community.[13] Addressing a meeting at Gurdwara Sis Ganj, Delhi, he said:
“I ask you to accept my word…and the resolution of the Congress that it will not betray a single individual, much less a community…our Sikh friends have no reason to fear that it would betray them. For, the moment it does so, the Congress would not only thereby seal its own doom but that of the country too. Moreover, Sikhs are a brave people. They know how to safeguard their rights by exercise of arms if it should ever come to that.”[14]
Jawaharlal Nehru reiterated Gandhi’s assurance to the Sikhs at the All India Congress Committee meeting in Calcuatta in 1946. He declared:
The brave Sikhs of Punjab are entitled to special consideration. I see nothing wrong in an area and a set-up in the North wherein the Sikhs can experience the glow of freedom.[15]
With the Muslims proposing the creation of a Pakistan to safeguard their interests, some Sikhs put forth the idea of carving out a Sikh state of Khalistan.[16] During a prolonged negotiation process during the 1940s between the British and the three groups seeking political power—Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs—the Congress Party continually extended such promises to prevent Sikhs from allying with the Muslim League. To win Sikh support, Jawaharlal Nehru again declared:
Redistribution of provincial boundaries was essential and inevitable. I stand for semi-autonomous units…if the Sikhs desire to function as such a unit, I would like them to have a semi-autonomous unit within the province so that they may have a sense of freedom.”[17]
These pledges of by Nehru and Gandhi on behalf of the Indian Congress were formalized through a resolution in the Constituent Assembly on December 9, 1946:
Adequate safeguards would be provided for minorities in India…It was a declaration, pledge and an undertaking before the world, a contract with millions of Indians and, therefore, in the nature of an oath we must keep.[18]
During a press conference on July 10, 1946 in Bombay, Nehru’s controversial statement that the Congress may “change or modify” the agreed upon agreement came “as a bombshell”.[19] As a consequence, Mohammad Ali Jinnah—the charismatic leader of the Muslim League—was forced to seek safeguards for his community through the creation of a separate Pakistan.
After the departure of the British, the Congress Party would repudiate all pledges and Constituent Assembly resolutions promulgated to safeguard Sikh interests.[20] Many Sikhs felt that they had been tricked into joining the Indian union. On Nov. 21, 1949, upon the review of the draft of the Indian Constitution, Hukam Singh, the Sikh representative, declared to the Constituent Assembly:
Naturally, under these circumstances, as I have stated, the Sikhs feel utterly disappointed and frustrated. They feel that they have been discriminated against. Let it not be misunderstood that the Sikh community has agreed to this [Indian] Constitution. I wish to record an emphatic protest here. My community cannot subscribe its assent to this historic document.[21]
The Sikhs, whose participation in India’s independence struggle was disproportionate to their small numbers (see Table 1), were labeled as a “criminal tribe” in postcolonial India. According to Kapur Singh, who was the Deputy Commissioner at Dalhousie and a member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS) at the time:
In 1947, the governor of Punjab, Mr. C.M. Trevedi, in deference to the wishes of the Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru and Sardar Patel, the Deputy Prime Minister, issued certain instructions to all the Deputy Commissioners of Indian Punjab…These were to the effect that, without reference to the law of the land, the Sikhs in general and Sikh migrants in particular must be treated as a “criminal tribe”. Harsh treatment must be meted out to them…to the extent of shooting them dead so that they wake up to the political realities and recognize “who are the rulers and who the subjects.” [22]
Master Tara Singh summed up Sikh sentiments in his Presidential Address to the All India Sikh Conference on March 28, 1953:
English-man has gone, but our [Sikh] liberty has not come. For us the so-called liberty is simply a change of masters, black for white. Under the garb of democracy and secularism, our Panth, our liberty and our religion are being crushed.[23]
In the 1950s and 1960s, linguistic issues in India caused civil disorder when the central government attempted to marginalize a select group of regional languages. Hindi was imposed as the national language on all Indians by the Hindu elite leading the Congress. “The nationwide movement of linguistic groups seeking statehood resulted in a massive reorganization of states according to linguistic boundaries in 1956. However, Punjabi, Sindhi and Urdu were the only three languages not considered for statehood.”[24] As a result, the Shiromani Akali Dal, the party representing the Sikhs in Punjab, initiated its first major movement in August 1950 that lasted two decades.[25] The Akali Dal sought to create a Punjabi suba, a Punjabi-speaking state. This case was presented to the Sates Reorganization Commission established in 1953. The Akali Dal’s manifesto declared:
The true test of democracy, in the opinion of the Shiromani Akali Dal, is that the minorities should feel that they are really free and equal partners in the destiny of their country…to bring home a sense of freedom to the Sikhs, it is vital that there should be a Punjabi speaking language and culture. This will not only be in fulfillment of the pre-partition Congress program and pledges, but also in entire conformity with the universally recognized principles governing formation of provinces…The Shiromani Akali Dal has reason to believe that a Punjabi-speaking province may give the Sikhs the needful security. It believes in a Punjabi speaking province as a autonomous unit of India.”[26]
A communal response from the Hindus of Punjab further complicated the Sikh demand. There was a Hindu opposition to the adoption of Punjabi as an official language in the Punjabi-speaking areas. Accordingly, Punjabi-speaking Hindus declared Hindi as their mother tongue in the censuses of 1951 and 1961. Paul Brass notes, “There is a good reason to believe…that the 1961 census accurately reflects that language preference of the people of the Punjab, although certainly not the actual mother tongue spoken.”[27] Why would Punjabi Hindus misrepresent and repudiate their linguistic heritage? According to Paul Brass, “The dominant Hindu majority, unable to assimilate the Sikhs, adopted the tactic of avoiding their language so that the Sikhs, a minority people by religion, might become a minority by language as well.”[28]
The demand for adoption of Punjabi for Punjabi-speaking areas intensified the rift between Hindus and Sikhs of Punjab. As the Hindus raised the slogan of “Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan” (lit. “the Hindi language, Hindu religion and Hindu India”), relations between the Akali Dal and the Congress government suffered as well.
The States Reorganization Commission, not recognizing Punjabi as a language that was distinct grammatically from Hindi, rejected the demand for a Punjabi suba or state. Another reason that the Commission gave in its report was that the movement lacked general support of the people inhabiting the region, a reference to the Punjabi Hindus who were opposed to the creation of a Punjabi-speaking state.[29] The Sikhs felt discriminated against by the commission. Hukam Singh of the Akali Dal wrote, “While others got States for their languages, we lost even our language.”[30] The Akali Dal saw the refusal of the Commission to concede to the Sikh demands as a sign of intolerance against a religious community that spoke a distinct language, which was both linguistically and lexically distinct from Hindi.[31] Fateh Singh, a leading Sikh representative, further noted, “No status is given to the Punjabi language, because Sikhs speak it. If non-Sikhs had owned Punjabi as mother tongue then the rulers of India would have seen no objection in establishing a Punjabi State.”[32]
The Akal Takht played a vital role in organizing Sikhs to campaign for the Punjabi suba. During the course of the campaign, twelve thousand Sikhs were arrested for their peaceful demonstrations in 1955 and twenty-six thousand in 1960-61.[33] Finally, in September 1966, the Punjabi suba demand was accepted by the central government and Punjab was trifurcated under the Punjab State Reorganization Bill. Areas in the south of Punjab that spoke a language that is a derivative of Braj formed a new state of Haryana and the Pahari- and Kangari-speaking districts north of Punjab were merged with Himachal Pradesh, while the remaining areas formed a new state of Punjab. As a result, the Sikhs became a majority in the newly created Punjabi suba.[34] Harnik Deol observes overtones of religious nationalism in this movement:
The main driving force of the Punjabi suba movement was the Sikh leadership saw a separate political status for the Sikhs as being essential for preserving the Sikh identity. Thus, the Akali leader Master Tara Singh noted in 1945, “there is not the least doubt that the Sikh religion will live only as long as the panth exists as an organized entity.”…It was further argued that the panth was based on the common ideology of Sikh religion. A prominent Akali leader argued that the ideology of the panth binds its adherents together in “Kinship which transcends distance, territory, caste, social barriers and even race.” By this logic the panth was coeval with the Sikh nation.[35]
In 1978, thirteen Sikhs were killed by the Nirankari group in Amritsar. To provide relief to the assailants, the central government moved the case to courts in the neighboring Hindu-dominated state of Haryana, where they were acquitted, increasing the Sikh alienation from India.
River Waters Dispute with Non-riperian States
Before the creation of the Punjabi suba, Punjab was the master of its river waters. When the Punjabi suba was created, the central government—against the provisions of the Indian constitution—introduced sections 78 to 80 in the Punjab Reorganization Act, 1966, under which the central government “assumed the powers of control, maintenance, distribution and development of the waters and the hydel power of the Punjab rivers.”[36]With seventy-five percent of Punjab’s river water being diverted to non-riparian, Hindu-dominated states of Haryana and Rajastan, the Sikhs have perceived the central government’s violation of the Indian constitution as a measure to break the Sikhs economically, since the vast majority of the people of Punjab are dependent on agriculture.[37] Similar river water disputes in other parts of the country have been resolved according to the Indian constitution, reinforcing the perception of the Sikhs that they are being targeted because of their religion.[38]
Helplessness of Judiciary in Water Disputes
The following anecdote describes the helplessness of the judiciary in India when it came to such disputes. According to the Institute of Sikh Studies, Chandigarh:
“An organisation of farmers had filed a petition in the High Court, Punjab and Haryana, regarding the unconstitutionality of the drain of the waters of the Punjab to the non-riparian states under the Reorganisation Act. The issue being of fundamental constitutional importance, the Chief Justice, S.S. Sandhawalia admitted the long pending petition and announced the constitution of a Full Bench, with himself as Chairman, for the hearing of the case on the following Monday, the 25th November, 1983. In the intervening two days before the hearing of the case could start, and these two days were holidays, two things happened. First, before Monday, the Chief Justice of the High Court was transferred to the High Court of Patna. Hence neither the Bench could sit, nor could the hearing of the case start. Second an oral application was given by the Attorney General in the Supreme Court requesting for the transfer of the writ petition from the file of the High Court to that of the Supreme Court on the ground that the issue involved was of great public importance. The request was granted; the case was transferred. And there this case of great public importance rests unheard for the last nearly twenty years.”[39]
Punjab’s Current Water Levels
According to the Earth Policy Institute, Punjab’s water table is falling by one meter per year, which could lead to disastrous consequences for the state and its farmers in the long-term.[40] This example demonstrates that the Indian constitution is used differently when deciding Sikh-Hindu conflicts and Hindu-Hindu conflicts, which can be seen as a sign of illiberalism. India has a constitution but the government and the judiciary may not to adhere to it, as in this case, when such conformism goes against Hindu interests.
The Akali Dal led a series of peaceful mass demonstrations to present its grievances to the central government. The demands of the Akali Dal were based on the Anandpur Sahib Resolution [11], which was adopted by the party in October 1973 to raise specific political, economic and social issues. The major motivation behind the resolution was safeguarding of the Sikh identity in a state structure that was decentralized with non-interference from the central government. The Indian state and the Indian media misrepresented the Anandpur Sahib Resolution [12] as a secessionist document in an attempt to malign the Sikhs. The Resolution outlines seven objectives. [41]
1. The transfer of the federally administered city of Chandigarh to Punjab. 2. The transfer of Punjabi speaking and contiguous areas to Punjab. 3. Decentralization of states under the existing constitution, limiting the central government’s role. 4. The call for land reforms and industrialization of Punjab, along with safeguarding the rights of the weaker sections of the population. 5. The enactment of an all-India gurdwara (Sikh house of worship) act. 6. Protection for minorities residing outside Punjab, but within India. 7. Revision of government’s recruitment quota restricting the number of Sikhs in armed forces.
Along with these demands, the issue concerning the unconstitutional diversion of Punjab’s river waters to non-riparian states has been of fundamental importance. Writing about the nature of these demands, The Wall Street Journal noted:
“The Akali Dal is in the hands of moderate and sensible leadership…but giving anyone a fair share of power is unthinkable politics of Mrs. Gandhi [the then Prime Minister of India]…Many Hindus in Punjab privately concede that there isn’t much wrong with these demands. But every time the ball goes to the Congress court, it is kicked out one way or another because Mrs. Gandhi considers it a good electoral calculation.”[42]
The early stages of the Sikh agitation for equal rights were peaceful, leading one commentator to note:
“…over 100,000 [Sikh] volunteers have been arrested. This high number of arrests is undoubtedly, a national record and so has been the peaceful nature in which the Satyagrahas [protests] of this magnitude have been handled by the Sikhs, with extreme tolerance.”[43]
According to an editorial in The New York Times:
“There was a nonviolent Sikh protest movement, but it was eclipsed when the Prime Minister rebuffed its demands…Since Indian independence in 1947, Sikhs have pleaded for greater autonomy and for specific recognition of their religion in the Constitution.”[44]
In a politically charged environment, Lala Jagat Narain, the owner of the Hind Samachar group of newspapers, was assassinated by Sikh militants in September 1981. He had been instrumental in persuading Punjabi Hindus to declare their mother tongue as Hindi. His editorials consistently attacked the Akali Dal’s leadership. His assassination led to mob violence by Hindus, who set Sikhs shops on fire and burnt the offices of the Akali Patrika, a Punjabi newspaper that represented Sikh interests. The government acted hastily by arraigning Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a charismatic Sikh preacher who had risen to popularity in Punjab for his harsh critique of the government.[45]
The vernacular press printed pamphlets and posters along with oral forms of communication, such as cassettes, enabled Bhindranwale to transmit his message to a wide range of Sikhs in Punjab and abroad. The political implications of such a movement were immense. It created solidarity and uniformity among practicing Sikhs and it influenced those Sikhs who were not interested in religion to become devout practitioners of faith. Bhindranwale’s emphasis on a distinct Sikh identity and his insistence on fighting for justice provided all the needed ingredients to strengthen the Sikh movement for greater autonomy.
On September 1981, Bhindranwale voluntarily offered his arrest in Amritsar, where he was detained and interrogated for twenty-five days, but was released because of lack of evidence. After his release, Bhindranwale relocated himself from his headquarters at Mehta Chowk to Guru Nanak Niwas within the Darbar Sahib precincts.[46] Many Sikhs today criticize this move because they think that it gave the state an excuse to attack the Darbar Sahib, but this criticism is unwarranted. As we will see, the Indian army attacked not only this important shine, but dozens of additional shrines across Punjab where there were no Sikh nationalists or militants in residence. Bhindranwale’s presence at the shrine, therefore, was a minor factor, if a factor at all, in Indira Gandhi’s decision to attack the Darbar Sahib. In fact, “the then deputy commissioner of Amritsar, Gurdev Singh…said that he had categorically informed the highest officials of the Punjab government that if they wanted to arrest Bhindranwale, there would be no major difficulty in organizing it. The chief minister, the governor of Punjab and other senior officials told him that the directive to take action against Bhindranwale had to come from Delhi.”[47] These orders never came because Bhindranwale had no outstanding charges against him. Arun Shourie of The Indian Express noted, “For all I know, he [Bhindranwale] is completely innocent and is genuinely and exclusively dedicated to the teachings of the Gurus.”[48] In December 1983, a senior officer in Chandigarh confessed: “It’s really shocking that we have so little against him [Bhindranwale] while we keep blaming him for all sorts of things.”[49] Therefore, to think that Bhindranwale invited an attack from the Indian army through his presence at the Darbar Sahib is to ignore an established fact that the army operation was planned well in advance, as stated by S. K. Sinha, a major figure in the Indian Army.
In August 1982, the Akali Dal under the leadership of Harcharan Singh Longowal launched the dharam yudh morcha, or the “battle for righteousness.” Bhindranwale and the Akali Dal united for the first time; their goal was the fulfillment of the demands based on the Anandpur Sahib Resolution. In two and a half months, security forces arrested thirty-thousand Sikhs for their peaceful demonstrations to the point that protesting volunteers could not be accommodated in the existing jails.[50]
Peaceful Protests Organized
In November 1982, Akali Dal announced the organization of peaceful protests in Delhi during the Asian Games. To prevent Sikhs from reaching Delhi, the central government stopped all buses, trains and vehicles that were headed for Delhi to interrogate Sikhs. Background or affiliation did not matter; all Sikhs were profiled, segregated and searched. The Sikhs as a community felt discriminated against by the Indian state. Later, the Akali Dal organized a convention at the Darbar Sahib attended by 5,000 Sikh ex-servicemen—-170 of whom were above the rank of colonel. These Sikhs claimed that there was discrimination against them in government service.[51]
The situation in Punjab deteriorated as violence escalated with the murders of Hindus and Sikhs. During this turmoil, the Akali Dal began another agitation in February 1984 protesting against clause (2) (b) of Article 25 of the Indian constitution, which defines Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains as Hindus. Several Akali leaders were arrested for burning the Indian constitution in protest. [52]
From the point of view of belief rights, India’s defining of its Sikh, Buddhist and Jain citizens as Hindus has serious ramification. For instance, a Sikh couple that marries in accordance to the rites of the Sikh religion must register its marriage under the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 [53] in order to be considered legally married.[54] This amounts to a coercive declaration that the couple is a Hindu. The contents of clause (2) (b) of Article 25 of the Indian constitution and the laws based on its understanding are in violation of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) calling for free exercise because Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains are forced to identify themselves as Hindus even for the simple purpose of obtaining a marriage certificate.[55] Here India’s secular credentials come into question because the state and its legislators abrogated to themselves the authority to define the beliefs of religious communities to which they do not belong. Furthermore, India’s overt attempt to categorize its religious minorities as Hindus in spite of strong protests attests to the state’s illiberal policies.
For over a year, the Indian army had been preparing for an attack on the Darbar Sahib. To legitimize the attack, according to Subramaniam Swami—-a member of the Indian Parliament—-the central government had created a disinformation campaign. In his words, the state sought to “make out that the Golden Temple was the haven of criminals, a store of armory and a citadel of the nation’s dismemberment conspiracy.”[56]
The Role of the Third Agency
Surya magazine (started by Maneka Gandhi, Indira’s daughter-in-law) published a special report detailing how the ‘Third Agency’, a special intelligence outfit created by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Secretariat, R. Shankaran Nair, was instrumental in smuggling most of the arms inside the Darbar Sahib.[57] “One week before the Army action, Punjab police had intercepted two truck loads of weapons and ammunition in the Batala sub-division of Gurdaspur district. But the officer of the Third Agency, in-charge of Amritsar, persuaded the director-general of police (DGP) to release them and send them along safely to the Golden Temple.”[58]
Invasion Takes Place on a Major Sikh Holiday
According to plan, the Indian army invaded the Darbar Sahib in an assault that was code named “Operation Blue Star” on June 5, 1984 to coincide with the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan, who had constructed the Darbar Sahib. It is common knowledge that this gurpurab (commemoration of Guru Arjan’s martyrdom) attracts an unusually large number of Sikh visitors at the Darbar Sahib, just like a large number of Muslims visit Mecca during the month of Ramadan. Then, why did the Indian army attack the most important Sikh shrine on this particular day? Ram Narayan Kumar notes, “Operation Blue Star was not only envisioned and rehearsed in advance, meticulously and in total secrecy, it also aimed at obtaining the maximum number of Sikh victims, largely devout pilgrims unconnected with the political agitation.”[59]
The Scale of the Attack
Cynthia Kepply Mahmood, describing the scale of the attack, writes:
“When it [the Indian army] attacked the Akal Takht part of the Golden Temple complex at Amritsar in 1984, containing the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, the ostensible aim was to rid the sacred buildings of the militants who had taken up shelter inside. But the level of force used in the attack was utterly incommensurate with this limited and eminently attainable aim. Seventy thousand troops, in conjunction with the use of tanks and chemical gas, killed not only the few dozen militants who didn’t manage to escape the battleground but also hundreds (possibly thousands) of innocent pilgrims, the day of the attack being a Sikh holy day. The Akal Takht, the seat of temporal authority for the Sikhs, was severly damaged and the Sikh Reference Library, an irreplaceable collection of books, manuscripts, and artifacts bearing on all aspects of Sikh history, was burned out. Thirty-seven other shrines were attacked across Punjab on the same day. The only possible reason for this appalling level of state force against its own citizens must be that the attempt was not merely to “flush out,” as they say, a handful of militants, but to destroy the fulcrum of a possible mass resistance against the state.”[60]
The Targetting of Civilians During the Attack
The most disturbing aspect of the operation was the targeting of civilians by the Indian army. Contrary to the statement of army Lt. General K. Sundarji, “We went inside [the Darbar Sahib] with humility in our hearts and prayers on our lips”[61]-—for the invading troops “every Sikh inside was a militant.”[62] Mark Tully, in his famous account of the invasion, writes: “Karnail Kaur, a young mother of three children, said, ”When people begged for water some jawans [soldiers] told them to drink the mixture of blood and urine on the ground.”
Tully records an eye-witness account by Bhan Singh, the then SGPC Secretary:
“I saw about thirty-five or thirty-six Sikhs lined up with their hands raised above their heads. And the major was about to order them to be shot. When I asked him for medical help, he got into rage, tore my turban off my head, and ordered his men to shoot me. I turned back and fled… Sardar Karnail Singh Nag, who had followed me, also narrated what he had seen, as well as the killing of thirty-five to thirty-six young Sikhs by cannon fire. All of them were villagers.”[63]
C.K.C. Reddy, while writing on the army action notes:
“The whole of Punjab and especially the Golden Temple Complex, was turned into a murderous mouse trap from where people could neither escape nor could they seek succor of any kind… The bodies of the victims of the military operations in Punjab were destroyed without any attempt to identify them and hand them over to their relatives for religious ceremonies… The most disturbing thing about the entire operation was that a whole mass of men, women, and children were ordered to be killed merely on the suspicion that some terrorists were operating from the Golden Temple and other Gurdwaras. There had been no judicial verdict of guilt against definite individuals who had been taking shelter in the Golden Temple.”[64]
The Sikh Rememberence of the Attack as a Holocaust
The Indian army’s invasion of the Darbar Sahib claimed as many as “7,000 to 8,000” lives according to some eyewitness accounts. The event is remembered by Sikhs as a ghalughara (holocaust) like the afore mentioned attacks by the Afghan invader Ahmed Shah Abdali)[65] While there is ample evidence to show that Bhindranwale was fighting for the demands articulated in the Anandpur Sahib Resolution and not for the separate state of Khalistan, the Indian army’s invasion was not seen by the Sikhs as “a security operation but a clash between two nations, the first ‘war for Khalistan’”.[66] As Joyce Pettigrew puts it:
“The sacrifice of Bhindranwale’s life and that of his followers drew attention to the fact that Sikhs live by a model of society opposed to that for which India stood. They were slaughtered in defense of their conception of what society should be.”[67]
The army operation was followed by another government-sponsored initiative, code-named, “Operation Woodrose”, in which the Indian army sought to eliminate all Amritdharis (members of the Khalsa Panth) across the villages of Punjab. Baatcheet, the Indian Army’s bulletin, made an appeal to all soldiers in June 1984:
“Any knowledge of the “Amritdharis” who are dangerous people and pledged to committing murder, arson and acts of terrorism should be immediately brought to the notice of the authorities. These people may appear harmless from outside but they are basically committed to terrorism. In the interest of us all, their identity and whereabouts must always be disclosed.”[68]
Report by Christian Science Monitor
All initiated Sikhs were “terrorists” in the eyes of the Indian state and were to be killed extra-judicially. The Christian Science Monitor reported:
“The pattern in each village appears to be the same. The Army moves in during the early evening, cordons a village, and announces over loudspeakers that everyone must come out. All males between the ages of 15 and 35 are trussed and blindfolded, then taken away…Thousands have disappeared in the Punjab since the Army Operation began. The government has provided no lists of names; families don’t know if sons and husbands are arrested, underground or dead.”[69]
Sikhs have argued that the Article 2 of the Genocide Convention is applicable to these massacres since they were “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.[70]The law of the land was disregarded completely when it came to the Sikhs challenging the notion whether the Indian democracy is built on individual rights, which the Sikh claim have varied according to the religious affiliations of those concerned. Joyce Pettigrew in her case-studies presented in The Sikhs of the Punjab: Unheard Voices of State and Guerilla Violence has shown that some affluent Sikhs with sufficient connection in the government, who did not subscribe to nationalism, became victims of state terror because of their religious identity as Sikhs.[71]
On the morning of October 31, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assasinated by two Sikhs of her security detail in her Home’s garden in New Delhi. The assassination triggered organized violence against Sikhs across north India. In the words of Khushwant Singh, on the night of October 31, “Politicians belonging to the ruling Congress party met to decide how to teach the Sikhs a lesson they would never forget.”[72] Ram N. Kumar describes the nature of organization of these state sponsored pogroms against Sikhs:
Early next morning, hordes of people from the suburbs of Delhi were transported to various localities in the city where the Sikh population was concentrated. The mobilization suggested backing of an organization with vast resources. The criminal hordes carried crude weapons…and combustible material, including kerosene, for arson. They were also supplied with lists of houses and business establishments belonging to the Sikhs in various localities. The government controlled television station Doordarshan, and the All India Radio began broadcasting provocative slogans seeking bloody vengence, “khoon ka badla khoon se lenge (Blood for blood!)”. Murderous gangs of 200 or 300 people led by the leaders, with policemen looking on, began to swarm into Sikh houses, hacking the occupants to pieces, chopping off the heads of children, raping women, tying Sikh men to tires set aflame with kerosene, burning down houses and shops after ransacking them… In some areas, the Sikh families grouped together for self-defense. The police officials then arrived to disperse them, by force when persuasion did not work… Khushwant Singh stated, ”I realized what Jews must have felt like in Nazi Germany.” He concluded: “The killing assumed the proportions of a genocide of the Sikh community.”[73]
State-operated national television was used by the state to incite violence against the Sikhs, in violation of the Article 20.2 of the ICCPR and the Article 7 of the UDHR. Encyclopedia of Genocide cites these events in its entry on “Genocide of Sikhs”.[74]
Sixteen Politicians Named as Organizers of the Pogroms
Two major civil-liberties organizations issued a joint report on the anti-Sikh pogrom naming sixteen important politicians, thirteen police officers and one hundred and ninety-eight others, accused by survivors and eye-witnesses.[75] In January 1985, journalist Rahul Bedi of the Indian Express and Smitu Kothari of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties “moved the High Court of Delhi to demand a judicial inquiry into the pogrom on the strength of the documentation carried out by human rights organizations. Justice Yogeshwar Dayal dismissed the petition after deprecating ‘those busybodies out for publicity, who poke their noses into all matters and waste the valuable time of the judiciary.’”[76]
Denial of Justice
As it is often the case in illiberal states, a number of politicians who organized the pogrom were rewarded with electoral success by the Congress party and by their Hindu constituents. The Misra Commission was appointed to investigate the killings as a tactic to delay and deny justice. According to Patwant Singh:
The Government received the Misra Commission’s report…and took six months to place it before parliament…a full 27 months after the killings. A weak and vapid report, it let key Congress figures off the hook and characteristically recommended the setting up of three more committees…The third committee spawned two more committees plus an enquiry by the Central bureau of Investigation (CBI). When one of these two, the Poti-Rosha Committee, recommended 30 cases for prosecution including one against Sajjan Kumar, Congress MP [Member of Parliament], and the CBI sent a team to arrest him on 11 September 1990, a mob held the team captive for more than four hours! According to the CBI’s subsequent affidavit filed in court, “the Delhi Police far from trying to disperse the mob sought an assurance from the CBI that he [Sajjan Kumar] would not be arrested.” The CBI also “disclosed that [another committee’s] file relating to the case [against him] was found in Sajjan Kumar’s house.” The MP was given “anticipatory bail while the CBI team was being held captive” by his henchmen.
Patwant Singh continues,
Justice Mirsa became the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and after retirement chairman of the National Human Rights Commission; the accused MPs, except one, were again given Congress tickets to stand for parliament; one of them, H.K.L. Bhagat, became a cabinet minister; three accused police officers were promoted and placed in high positions…The Sikhs, determined to see those they believe to be guilty punished, continue to press for justice although fully aware of the fact that in India too, as Solzhenitsyn wrote about his country, “the lie has become not just a moral category, but a pillar of the state.”[77]
There was a collusion between India’s executive branch, its legislators, judiciary and law enforcement agencies. In May 2004, two senior Congress politicians, Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, “widely cited as perpetrators of the 1984 pogroms against Sikhs by survivors and witnesses”[78] were elected as Members of Parliament, in addition to Kamal Nath who had attacked Gurdwara Rakab Ganj in Delhi. Furthermore, Manmohhan Singh, a Sikh who defended India’s human rights record during the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993 and does not acknowledge his party’s role in the pogroms against Sikhs in November 1984, ascended to the position of Prime Minister of India in May 2004.[79]
During the late 1980s and the early 1990s, there was a dramatic rise in Sikh militancy in Punjab. Scholars have been unable to assess the claims of the government concerning the scale of violence. Lack of independent reporting by the press contributed toward the defamation of militants who enjoyed popular support toward the beginning of Khalistan’s independence movement.[80] The Times of India reported:
“Often and unwittingly…journalists fall prey to the government disinformation which suavely manages to plant stories…The confusion gets compounded when government agencies also resort to feeding disinformation on letterheads of militant organizations since there is no way of confirming or seeking clarifications on press notes supposedly issued by militants who are underground and remain inaccessible most of the time.”[81]
Ram Narayan Kumar, a human rights activist with considerable work experience in Punjab, provides remarkable insights into the workings of the state that sought to discredit the Sikh movement. He writes:
“My own research on Punjab…suggested that the state agencies were creating vigilante outfits in order to infiltrate the Sikh radical movement and generate a climate of moral revulsion by engineering heinous crimes which they then attributed to armed Sikh groups.”[82]
The Indian state has consistently undermined peace initiatives that could have led to peace and stability in Punjab. There has been much reluctance on the part of the central government to recognize Sikh grievances. The one and only attempt of the central government to seek a political solution to the grievances presented by the Sikhs resulted in the Rajiv-Longowal Accord, which took place between the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, the then President of the Akali Dal who was later assassinated. The accord recognized the religious, territorial and economic demands of the Sikhs that were thought to be non-negotiable under Indira Gandhi’s tenure. While the agreement provided some basis for a return to normalcy, it was denounced by Sikh militants who claimed that the Indian state could not be trusted. Their claim became valid when the territorial transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab—scheduled for January 26, 1986—was first delayed, then postponed and eventually suspended by the central government.[83] The table below provides the solutions outlined in the agreement and the status of their implementation.
| Issue | Agreement | Implementation |
| Implementation of Anandpur Sahib Resolution (ASR) seeking greater autonomy to states | Referred to Sarkaria Commission Report | Oct. 1987: Rejects ASR approach to Center-State relations |
| Transfer of Chandigarh to Punjab | To be transferred by Jan. 1986. Punjab to compensate Haryana with equivalent territory for a new capital. Other territorial disputes to be settled by a commission. | Three commissions (Matthew/Venkatarmiah/Desai) fail to provide an agreement. Strong opposition in Haryana. July 1986: union government suspends the transfer for an indefinite period. |
| Sharing of Ravi-Beas Waters by non-riparian states | A tribunal headed by a Supreme Court judge to adjudicate. July 1985 consumption as a baseline. | May 1987: Eradi Tribunal reduced Punjab’s July 1985 level while doubling Haryana’s share. |
| Prosecution of those responsible for November 1984 Anti-Sikh Pogroms | Referred to Mishra Commission | February 1987: Absolves Congress (I) of responsibility placing guilt on Delhi police. |
| Army Deserters | To be rehabilitated and given gainful employment | August 1985: 900 out of 2,606 deserters rehabilitated. |
| Political Detainees | Release of political detainees and withdrawal of special powers | Limited releases. May 1988, Parliament passes the 59th amendment to the constitution. The amendment allowed for the suspension of the rights to life and liberty, habeas corpus, freedoms of speech and association, and the guarantee of fundamental rights. |
| Religious Autonomy | Enactment of an all-India Gurdwara act | Not enacted; May 1988: Religious Institutions (Prevention of Misuse) Ordinance. |
The failure of the central government to implement the agreement led to further alienation of the Sikhs from the Indian state. On April 29, 1986, an assembly of thousands of Sikhs at the Akal Takht made a declaration of an independent state of Khalistan. These events were followed by a decade of violence and conflict in Punjab.
A recent observation by Tapan Bose of the South Asia Forum for Human Rights provides a critique of the Indian claim that normalcy and peace have returned to Punjab and by implication no peace initiatives are needed:
“…the silence of graveyard that obtains in Punjab today is not a reflection of peace. The enquiry being conducted by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in the disappearances and illegal cremations in Punjab, shows the deep social division that is endangering the prospects of justice and peace in the state…Although this matter or police abductions leading to illegal cremations was initiated six years ago before the NHRC, the commission unfortunately has failed to examine a single case of abuse. It has also not heard a single victim’s testimony or deposition.”[85]
According to Amnesty International, the Indian state has sought to stifle the basic human rights of the Sikhs by creating a culture of impunity where large-scale extrajudicial killings, torture, custodial rape, use of draconian laws by state agencies are natural occurrences that go unpunished.[86]
While mass media reports claim that “normalcy” has returned to Punjab, impartial observers like Amnesty International assert that the basic human rights of the Sikhs continue to be violated by the Indian state.[87]From recent events, it appears that a demand for Khalistan persists in sections of the Sikh community. On April 14, 2004, Daljit Singh Bittu founded a new political party, the Shiromani Khalsa Dal, with “establishment of a free, sovereign, and separate Khalsa state” as its primary objective.[88] Second, on April 29, 2004, the Dal Khalsa, a Sikh nationalist organization, began a week long “Khalsa Freedom March” from the Akal Takht in Amritsar with an objective of gaining support for the idea of Khalistan by peaceful means.[89] A large number of gurdwĝras (the Sikh houses of worship), across Punjab and in the diaspora continue to celebrate the “martyrdom” anniveraries of Sikhs who died fighting in the Khalistan freedom struggle. While fear of human rights abuses keeps sloganing in Punjab to the minimum, the Sikh organizations in the diaspora (primarily Europe, North America and Australia) continue to lobby for the secession of Khalistan from the Indian union.
Creation of the Punjab Rights Forum
In June/July 2005 following the arrests of dozens of alleged Babbar Khalsa (International) militants and sympathizers in Punjab and Delhi, a number of Punjab based pro-Khalistan political parties and organizations joined forces with a dozen odd Human Rights, Religious and Kisan groups to form a loose coalition known as the Punjab Rights Forum.
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Posted by admin in Afghan -Taliban-India Axis, Jahiliya "Jihadis"Illiterate Fanatics, Pakistan's Fights Terrorism, RAW-Mossad Axis, Zionist Enemy on April 21st, 2013
Ashok- Discover India-BloggerJanes information group, the world’s foremost source on intelligence information, reported in July 2001 that “The Indian spy agency RAW and the Israeli spy agency Mossad have created four new agencies to infiltrate Pakistan to target important religious and military personalities, journalists, judges, lawyers and bureaucrats. In addition, bombs would be exploded in trains, railway stations, bridges, bus stations, cinemas, hotels and mosques of rival Islamic sects to incite sectarianism.”Pakistani intelligence agencies also said that RAW had constituted a plan to lure Pakistani men between 20 and 30 years of age to visit India so that they could be entrapped “in cases of fake currency and subversion and then be coerced to spy for India.”This was the high point of cementing an unholy alliance which began much earlier and which continues to tighten its noose around the neck of Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia.It appears that RAW and Mossad — either singly or jointly, either covertly or overtly — have been making efforts to penetrate sensitive circles of top echelon in Pakistan.It cannot be said with certainty but there are some reasons to assume that Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, wittingly or unwittingly, played in the hands of RAW-Mossad masterminds. She appointed Rehman Malik as chief of the Federal Investigation Agency which then launched a secret war against the Islamists; amounting to a direct attack on the ISI.War against religious extremists could have been a laudable goal but it seemed to target only those elements which could have brought a semblance of moderation to the religious swatch cutting across Pakistan society.Thus, leaving the field wide open for extremists.It seems that the Pakistani military was equally dismayed by reports of FIA contacts with the Israeli secret service, the MOSSAD, to investigate Islamist terrorists.One of the first acts of President Leghari after dismissing Benazir Bhutto on November 5, 1996 was to imprison the Ghulam Asghar, head of FIA, suspended on non-specified corruption charges. Rehman Malik, Addl. Director General FIA, was also arrested.Whether these actions were triggered as a consequence of plotting by RAW-Mossad planners or whether it was an entirely internal matter, it is difficult to say.Bhutto s visit to India last year at a time when Pakistan was going through one of the worst crises in its history, and her statements there which aimed to undermine the whole foundation of Pakistan, generate more than a flicker of doubt in analytic minds.The basic question arises: Who is Benazir Bhutto?Leaving BB to her own fate, let’s return to RAW-Mossad connection.What is clear right now is that Indian RAW and Israeli Mossad are collaborating extensively to curb the freedom movement of Kashmir and destabilize Pakistan.The Indian newspaper The Pioneer wrote on March 3, 2001: Fencing of the Indo-Pak border is not enough. To check Pakistan-sponsored cross-border terrorism, top security experts of Israel have suggested that hi-tech gadgets ranging from an electronic barrier system of radars to thermal imaging devices should be immediately installed on India’s sensitive international border in J[ammu] & K[ashmir] and Punjab sectors.The team of experts, including officials of the Mossad, the Israeli Army and the Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), also found shocking loopholes in the security arrangements relating to the much-talked about Samjhauta Express. They advised that instead of Lahore, the train should terminate on the Attari border. Sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs said the Israeli experts surveyed the 198 km international border in Jammu and Punjab and reviewed the route of the Samjhauta Express with top officials of the Border Security Force.Subsequently, former DG of the Border Security Force, E.N. Ram Mohan was appointed as the consultant on border management. Mr. Ram Mohan has recommended that besides radars, aerostate balloons and FLIR equipment be used.India is keen to purchase surveillance aircraft (UAVs) from Israel to gain intelligence teeth. The UAVs could also help the state police in keeping an eye in naxalite-affected areas of Andhra Pradesh.For several years, Mossad and Israel’s internal intelligence agency, Shinbhet, have utilised unmanned air vehicles to patrol the hypersensitive Gaza border.Qutbuddin Aziz, former minister in Pakistan embassy in London, wrote an excellent article, titled ‘Dangerous Nexus between Israel & India.’ It was published by a prominent Pakistani newspaper on April 1, 2001.Aziz writes: “Top secret details of Indian Home Minister LK Advani’s visit to Israel in June 2000, show that the deals he has struck with the Israelis would make India and Israel partners in threatening the Muslim world with diabolic conspiracies to fragment and cripple it as a political force in the world. The details of his meetings with Israel’s rulers, particularly the heads of the Israeli Home Ministry and its intelligence agencies, Mossad and Sabak, reveal that the arrangements he has made for joint Indo-Israel espionage operations in key areas of the Muslim world would make the Indian embassies in these Muslim countries the eyes and ears of the worldwide cloak-and-dagger Israeli spy network.”Under the euphemism of ‘counter-terrorism,’ India is allowing Israel to establish a huge spy establishment in India which will, inter alia, unearth and monitor ‘Islamic fundamentalist’ individuals and groups for elimination by extra judicial process or by cold-blooded murder and kidnapping.”The most important meeting Indian Home Minister Advani had during his three-day Israeli tour on June 13-16 was with the top brass of Israel’s intelligence agencies in Tel Aviv. Heading the Israeli team was the powerful chief of Israeli police, Yehuda Wilk, with the heads of the Israeli intelligence agencies, Mossad and Sabak, and military officials dealing with Israel’s punitive and espionage operations against Arabs in Israel, Palestine and neighbouring states such as Lebanon and Syria. Senior officials from the Israeli Foreign Office and the defence and home ministries attended this meeting. Israeli experts in bomb detection were also present.”Mr. Advani’s large team included India’s highest-level spymasters such as the Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Mr. Shayamal Dutta, the Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, Mr. R. K. Raghvan, the head of the Indian Border Security Force, Mr. E. M. Ram Mohan, Indian Home Ministry’s powerful Secretary K. Pande who oversees the work of the infamous Indian spy agency, RAW, and liaises with the Indian Foreign Office in respect of undercover RAW agents working in Indian embassies abroad, and a senior officer of India’s military intelligence agency (equivalent of Pakistan’s ISI).”In this top-level meeting in Tel Aviv on June 14, Advani reportedly thanked the Israeli government for its immense help to India in security matters and spoke of the dangers India and Israel face from their common enemies, i.e., Muslim neighbours.”Advani, it is reported, highly praised the help provided by Mossad and army commando personnel to the Indian army in the war on ‘Muslim militants’ in Kashmir and against ‘Muslim terrorists’ such as the ‘Memon brothers’ of Mumbai in Dubai. Advani said he had, throughout his political career, advocated India’s recognition and friendship with Israel and that his party had played a key role in forcing Congress government to have full diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992.”He lauded the Indo-Israeli cooperation in the military, economic and other fields. Advani recalled that India had voted in favour of a US-sponsored motion in the UN for rescinding a UN resolution that equated Zionism with racism. Mr. Advani explained at length India’s security problems in which the danger from Pakistan and Indian Muslims getting Arab money loomed large. Advani gave a long list of the special services in spying and the anti-insurgency devices and spy equipment India urgently needs from Israel to combat ‘Muslim terrorism.'”In the June 14 Tel Aviv meeting, the Israeli Police Chief, Yehuda Wilk, profusely praised India for its friendship with Israel and pledged help to the Indian government in combating ‘Muslim terrorism’ that poses new threats to Israel and India. The heads of India’s intelligence agencies then briefed the Israeli side in the meeting on the ground situation in India in respect of ‘Muslim terrorists,’ especially in Jammu and Kashmir, and the new dangers coming up for India and Israel because of the Pakistani bomb and the fear that Pakistan may give its nuclear weapons to the anti-Israel Arabs.”The Indian side showed a keen interest in learning from Israeli security experts how they had run the slice of Lebanon which Israel ruled for 18 years and gave up recently. Some information about the Israeli torture and investigation methods was gathered by the Indian side from the Israelis with regard to dealing with Arab dissidents within Israel and in the Palestinian Authority region.”The Indians gave the Israelis a long shopping list of spying, torture and surveillance equipment such as electronic fencing of sensitive sites, laser systems, short-range rockets, eagle-eyed long distance snipers, observation blimps, giant shields, night vision device, unmanned aircraft of the MALAT wing of the Israeli Aircraft Industries Limited, special protective dress and gear for security personnel, cross border snopping devices and gadgets, training and deployment of spies and the special gear for them, use of computers and Internet for espionage and disinformation, code-breaking, tailing of enemy agents and their elimination, nuclear espionage, purloining state secrets of hostile countries and pooling them for the good of India and Israel and their mutual friends.”The Israelis were interested in having access to the secret reports of Indian undercover RAW diplomats from certain Muslim countries of special interest to Israel (especially Pakistan, Libya and Iran). India is apparently willing to grant access to Israeli agents to the Indian Home Ministry’s Central Intelligence Processing Unit (CIPU) in New Delhi. This was recently set up under Advani’s direction with Israeli and US help. A handpicked RAW officer, trusted by Advani, heads this unit. Israel wants full access to its information data. The Indian government has already allowed access to it by American intelligence agencies now working with the Indian government on so-called anti-terrorist assignments.Federation of American Scientists website comments on RAW in these words: “RAW has engaged in disinformation campaigns, espionage and sabotage against Pakistan and other neighboring countries. RAW has enjoyed the backing of successive Indian governments in these efforts. Working directly under the Prime Minister, the structure, rank, pay and perks of the Research & Analysis Wing are kept secret from Parliament.”Tarek Fatah, a Turkish scholar settled in Canada, wrote: “Britain’s authoritative and respected defense publication, Jane’s Terrorism & Security Monitor, reports that Israel and India have formed a military relationship and that Israeli intelligence is active in Occupied Kashmir.”It says: Israeli intelligence agencies have been intensifying their relations with India’s security apparatus and are now understood to be heavily involved in helping New Delhi combat Islamic militants in the disputed province of Kashmir…Ed Blanche writes in Janes’ Security on 14 August 2001: “Israeli intelligence agencies have been intensifying their relations with India’s security apparatus and are now understood to be heavily involved in helping New Delhi combat Islamic militants in the disputed province of Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state which lies at the core of the conflict with neighbouring Pakistan.”Israel has several teams now in Kashmir training Indian counter-insurgency forces to fight the dozen separatist guerrilla groups operating in the Indian-controlled sector of the disputed state.”The exact extent of the involvement in Kashmir by Israel s intelligence agencies is far from clear, but it fits into Israel’s increasing focus on events in Central Asia, and as far afield as Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim state, to counteract Islamic fundamentalism, which it perceives as a major threat.”Shimon Peres, currently Israel’s foreign minister, said during a visit to New Delhi in January 2001 (shortly before he took his current post in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s coalition government) that Israel was prepared to co-operate with India to fight terrorism. Weeks earlier, an Israeli counterterrorism team, including military intelligence specialists and senior police commanders, paid a visit to Indian-administered Kashmir and other regions of the country that are grappling with anti-government militants to assess India’s security needs.If there is still any doubt as to the real intentions of Israel, then please see this statement issued by David Ben Gurion, the first Israeli Prime Minister. His words, as printed in the Jewish Chronicle, 9 August 1967, leave nothing to imagination:”The world Zionist movement should not be neglectful of the dangers of Pakistan to it. And Pakistan now should be its first target, for this ideological State is a threat to our existence. And Pakistan, the whole of it, hates the Jews and loves the Arabs.”This lover of the Arabs is more dangerous to us than the Arabs themselves. For that matter, it is most essential for the world Zionism that it should now take immediate steps against Pakistan.”Whereas the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula are Hindus whose hearts have been full of hatred towards Muslims, therefore, India is the most important base for us to work therefrom against Pakistan.”It is essential that we exploit this base and strike and crush Pakistanis, enemies of Jews and Zionism, by all disguised and secret plans. ____We are grateful to Tariq Saeedi for permission to reprint excerpts from his special report that appeared first in The Balochistan Post, www.balochistanpost.com .
Looking for the lost money that belonged to the Pakistani people…
The money is gone: Pakistani people own the loans & Citibank knew where it is:
Saturday August 8, 2009
GEO TV: For the first time in YEARS, on Pakistan mainstream TV network, Dr. Shahid Masood in his “Mere Mutabiq” program reveals the facts that money from Pakistans treasury was taken by Asif Ali Zardari, the CURRENT President of Pakistan, and laundered through the Cayman Islands, finally winding up at Citibank Switzerland. Also named in the charges is former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz (who now lives in London).
Dr. Shahid Masood reports, “As the Pakistani Army and people fight terrorists in the country, we have financial terrorists attacking in Pakistan, and present a much greater threat to the country.” (Translation).
Oil companies who have recently collected 7 billion rupees in carbon taxes (ordered by Zardari), have yet to pay a single rupee in taxes to the Pakistan treasury.
Nothing yet in print media; but here are two articles from Pakistani online news back in 2007.
Ref
Shaukat Aziz and Citibank’s Laundering of Asif Zardari’s Money
Posted: Nov 22, 2007 Thu 12:00 am
How Citibank Laundered Asif Zardari’s Money, provides a case history excerpted from a US Congress Subcommittee’s investigation of moneylaundering by private banking groups within US banks during the 1990s. The present post reproduces an interesting document, “List of meetings between Mr. Zardari and Citibank personnel, provided by Citibank,” being document “h” of a list of “Documents relating to Asif Ali Zardari” appended to the Report.
As part of its investigation, the subcommittee asked Citibank to provide a written record of meetings held between Citibank officials and four high profile Citibank account holders, including Mr. Asif Ali Zardari. Unlike the other cases, in which the names of relatively low level Citibank private banking group staff emerges in the records provided, the names of Citibank staff involved in the case of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari consists of men who have gone on to play a prominent role in Pakistan:
Shaukat Aziz, Until recently Prime Minister of Pakistan (close ties to CIA
Shaukat Tarin, Chairman, Board of Directors, Karachi Stock Exchange
Sajjad Rizvi
Nadeem Hussain, CEO, Tameer Bank & President, Tameer Foundation
The statement provided by Citibank lists date, participants, location, and summary of contacts between Citibank staff and the Bhuttos. This statement is reproduced below, interspersed with important events in the more detailed Asif Zardari case summary [see here] provided in the House Sub-Committee Report, inserted chronologically:
Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Exhibit # 31h.
Meetings, Events, or Functions at which Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, or Both Were Present
Date: Late January/Early February 1994
Participants: William Rhodes, Shaukat Aziz, Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, and others
Location: Davos, Switzerland
Summary: William Rhodes and Shaukat Aziz attend Davos economic conference. During conference, they are guests at a dinner hosted by Benazir Bhutto and attended by approximately 150 others.
Date: February 1994
Participants: John Reed, Paul Collins, Shaukat Tarin, Benazir Bhutto, and Asif Ali Zardari
Location: Islamabad
Summary: Discussion of Pakistani and world affairs
NOTES on the Citibanksters:
William Rhodes: William R. “Bill” Rhodes Rhodes is the Senior Vice Chairman of Citigroup Inc. and the Chairman of Citigroup and Citibank. He is also Chairman of the Board of both the Americas Society and its affiliate, the Council of the Americas, which were originally founded by David Rockefeller in 1965, and is a board member of the Group of Thirty.
Rhodes was educated at Northfield Mount Hermon, a college preparatory school, and Brown University; he joined Citibank in 1957. As the Senior International Officer for Citigroup, Mr. Rhodes has specific responsibilities for client relationships in emerging markets worldwide, relationships with governments and other official institutions and appointments of Citibank’s senior country officers outside the U.S.
John Shepard Reed [/b] (born 1939) is the former Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. He previously served as Chairman and CEO of Citicorp, Citibank, and post-merger, Citigroup.was asked to be interim CEO of the New York Stock Exchange after the Richard Grasso over-compensation scandal. He accepted the job for a $1 salary and set up new governance rules as the NYSE became a public corporation. Reed is on the board of directors at Altria Group.
Paul J. Collins became a director of the [Enstar Group Ltd.] on January 31, 2007 in connection with the completion of the Merger. Mr. Collins served as a director of The Enstar Group, Inc. from May 2004 through the Merger. Mr. Collins retired as a Vice Chairman and member of the Management Committee of Citigroup Inc. in September 2000. From 1985 to 2000, Mr. Collins served as a director of Citicorp and its principal subsidiary, Citibank; from 1988 to 1998, he also served as Vice Chairman of those entities. Mr. Collins currently serves as chairman of the University of Wisconsin Foundation and a trustee of the Glyndebourne Arts Trust. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, a private equity firm. He was previously a director of Kimberly Clark Corporation, Nokia Corporation and BG Group and a member of the supervisory board of Actis Capital LLP.
Date: August 1994
Participants: Sajjad Rizvi, Paul Collins, Shaukat Tarin, Benazir Bhutto, and others
Location: Prime Minister’s Residence, Islamabad
Summary: General courtesy call, discussion of Citibank, macroeconomics and socio-political issues.
[Oct 1994 Mr. Zardari’s relationship with Citibank begins, with an account opened for Capricorn Trading, S.A. a British Virgin Island company, reportedly “through the services of Kamran Amouzegar, a private banker at Citibank private bank in Switzerland, and Jens Schlegelmilch, a Swiss lawyer who was the Bhutto family’s attorney in Europe and close personal friend for more than 20 years.”]
[5-6 Oct 1994 ARY International Exchange, a Dubai company owned by Abdul Razzak Yakub, alleged to have been given a gold import monopoly by Benazir Bhutto, deposits $5 million into the Capricorn Trading account on 5 Oct 1994; and another $5 million on 6 October 1994.]
Date: December 1994
Participants: Shaukat Aziz, Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto’s economics advisor, Pkistani ambassador to Washington and others
Location: Prime Minister’s Residence, Islamabad
Summary: Discussion of Pakistani economy during a dinner meeting
[25 Feb 1994 A 3rd deposit, this time of $8 million, is made to the Capricorn trading account. Citibank says it does not know the source of this deposit.]
[27 Feb 1995 “Mr. Schlegelmilch, working with Mr. Amouzegar, opened three accounts at the Citibank Switzerland private bank. The accounts were opened in the name of M.S. Capricorn Trading, which already had an account at Citibank’s Dubai branch, aswell as Marvel and Bomer Finance, two other British Virgin Island PICs established by Mr. Schlegelmilch, according to Citibank. Each private bank account listed Mr. Schlegelmilch as the account contact and signatory. Citibank informed the Subcommittee that the Swiss Form A, a government-required beneficial owner identification form, identified Mr. Zardari as the beneficial owner of each PIC.”
[6 March 1995 $8.1 million, routed through Citibank, NY, transferred from Dubai to Swiss account.]
Date: March 7-10, 1995
Participants: Shaukat Aziz, William Rhodes, Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari and others
Location: Singapore
Summary: During a state visit to Singapore by Benazir Bhutto, William Rhodes and Shaukat Aziz meet with Benazir Bhutto and her advisors in Benazir Bhutto’s hotel suite to discuss the Pakistani economy. At several official events
during this state visit, Shaukat Aziz exchanges greetings with Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari
Date: March 7-10, 1995
Participants: Shaukat Aziz, William Rhodes, Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari and others
Location: Singapore, Dinner hosted by the Pakistani Ambassador
Summary: Shaukat Aziz exchanges greetings with Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari. Benazir Bhutto’s economic advisor asked Benazir Bhutto if she had ever visited Shaukat Aziz’s home in Singapore. She replied that she has never been invited. Shaukat Aziz stated that the Prime Minister was welcome.
Date: March 7-10, 1995
Participants: Shaukat Aziz, Shaukat Aziz’s wife, Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, protocol chiefs for Pakistan and Singapore, the Pakistani Ambassador, and numerous aides and security officials
Location: Shaukat Aziz’s home in Singapore
Summary: During state visit to Singapore Benazir Bhutto makes a surprise visit to Shaukat Aziz’s home. The Benazir Bhutto party remains for approximately one hour.
5 May 1995 $10.2 million, routed through Citibank, NY, transferred from Dubai to Swiss account. Shortly thereafter, Capricorn Trading’s Dubai account was closed. “Citibank has indicated that significant amounts of other funds were also deposited into the Swiss accounts. As described below, the $40 million cap was reached, and millions of additional dollars also passed through those accounts. However, Swiss bank secrecy law has prevented the Subcommittee from obtaining the details on the transactions in the Zardari accounts.”]
Date: July 1995
Participants: Shaukat Aziz, Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari and others
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Summary: Shaukat Aziz exchanges greetings with Asif Ali Zardari and Benazir Bhutto at a lunch given by Malaysian foreign minister in connection with benazir Bhutto’s state visit to Malaysia. Shaukat Aziz may also have exchanged greetings with Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari at other events during the visit.
Date: Sometime during Benazir Bhutto’s second term as Prime Minister
Participants: Shaukat Aziz, Shaukat Tarin, Asif Ali Zardari and others
Location: Prime Minister’s Residence, Islamabad
Summary: Shaukat Aziz, Shaukat Tarin meet, perhaps on two different occasions, with Asif Ali Zardari and his aides for informal discussions about the Pakistani economy.
Date: September or October 1995
Participants: Sajjad Rizvi, Paul Collins, Shaukat Tarin, Benazir Bhutto and others
Location: Prime Minister’s Residence, Islamabad
Summary: General courtesy call, discussion of Citibank, macroeconomics and socio-political issues.
Date: December 1995
Participants: Shaukat Aziz, Paul Collins, Asif Ali Zardari and 1,500 others
Location: Karachi
Summary: Asif Ali Zardari is a guest at the wedding of Shaukat Aziz’s daughter
Date: During Benazir Bhutto’s second terms as prime minister
Participants: Shaukat Aziz and representatives of various banks
Location: Karachi
Summary: Asif Ali Zardari arrives at the end of dinner gathering of bank representatives in Karachi
Date: Late in Benazir Bhutto’s second terms as prime minister
Participants: Shaukat Aziz, Benazir Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto’s Finance Secretary and other economic advisors
Location: Prime Minister’s Residence, Islamabad
Summary: Discussion of Pakistani economy
Date: February 1996
Participants: Nadeem Hussain, Shaukat Tarin, Asif Ali Zardari and Javed Pasha
Location: Prime Minister’s Residence, Islamabad
Summary: Courtesy meeting to introduce Hussain as Citibank’s new consumer bank head in Pakistan
Date: March 1996
Participants: Sajjad Rizvi, possibly Shaukat Tarin, Margaret Thatcher, Benazir Bhutto and others
Location: Prime Minister’s Residence, Islamabad
Summary: Courtesy call with Lady Thatcher, whose speaking tour was sponsored by Citibank.
Mar/Apr 1996 “Mr. Amouzegar asked that the overall limit on the Zardari accounts be increased from $40 million to $60 million, apparently because the accounts had reached the previously imposed limit of $40 million. Citibank told the Subcommittee staff that Mr. Holderbeke considered the request, but declined to increase the $40 million limit.
June 1996 UK press reports that Mr. Zardari had purchased real estate in London. Citibank claims that an internal review was done, but Mr. Schlegelmilch allegedly indicated the funds had come from the sale of some sugar mills and were legitimate,” which Citibank accepted.
Date: August 1996
Participants: Paul Collins, Citibank Country Corporate Officer for Pakistan and Benazir Bhutto
Location: Probably Islamabad
Summary: Discussion regarding Citibank, the Pakistani economy, and regional economic and political developments.
Date: Fall 1996
Participants: Shaukat Aziz, Benazir Bhutto, Nusrat Bhutto, Sanam Bhutto, Dr. Bunyad Haider and others
Location: Waldorf Astoria, New York City
Summary: Discussion of Pakistani economy. Shaukat Aziz expressed condolences regarding the death of Benazir Bhutto’s brother. Following this meeting, Shaukat Aziz,
Benazir Bhutto and 20 others have dinner at the hotel.
[Nov 1996 Zardari arrested, for the second time, on charges of corruption.]
[Jan 1997 Citibank closed the Zardari accounts.
8 Sep 1997 Swiss government issued orders freezing the Zardari and Bhutto accounts at Citibank and three other banks in Switzerland, at the request of the Pakistani government.
5 Dec 1997 Citibank prepared a Suspicious Activity Report on the Zardari accounts and filed it with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the U.S. Department of Treasury. Note: So Citibank finally ‘notices’ suspicious activity – what took them so long???
Date: 1998
Participants: Shaukat Aziz, Shaukat Aziz’s wife, Benazir Bhutto, Dr. Bunyad Haider and his wife and several other couples
Location: The Haider’s New Jersey home
Summary: Meeting among Pakistanis in the New York area and Benazir Bhutto
[END]
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Source: PRIVATE BANKING AND MONEY LAUNDERING: A CASE STUDY OF OPPORTUNITIES AND VULNERABILITIES, Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Sixth Congress, First Session, November 9 and 10, 1999. Pages 474-477.
http://www.gpo.gov/congress/senate/senate12sh106.html
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“They who have put out the people’s eyes, reproach them of their blindness.” — –John Milton
Re: Pakistan’s Looted Treasury: Stashed in Swiss Citibank Accounts
« Reply #1 on: August 08, 2009, 05:37:46 PM »
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How Citibank Laundered Asif Zardari’s Money
Posted: Nov 7, 2007 Wed 08:53 am
http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/64054/44106
In addition to Mr. Shaukat Aziz, current Prime Minister of Pakistan, numerous former Citibankers occupy highly influential positions in the government and the private sector in Pakistan.
Citibank is one of the largest banks, and operates one of the largest private banks in the US and globally. Of the 40 private banks reviewed by the Federal Reserve during its industry wide examination of private banking in the 1990s, only one — Citibank — was reviewed in detail by Federal Reserve examiners three years in a row. It is a private bank that has struggled with a wide range of anti-money laundering issues. Although Citibank, under Shaukat Aziz’s leadership (from May 1997 to October 1999) and his successors’ has done much to tighten controls, it was beset by numerous scandals during the 1990s.
A 1999 US Congress investigation (exact reference given at end) into Citibank, provides a fascinating inside look at how Citibank helped launder the ill-gotten gains of four high profile corrupt figures: Raul Salinas, brother of the former president of Mexico, Carlos Salinas, Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan (reproduced below), El Hadj Omar Bongo, the elected president of Gabon since 1967, and Mohammed, Ibrahim, and Abba Sani Abacha, three sons of General Sani Abacha, who was the military leader of Nigeria from 1993 until his death in 1998.
Of the four case histories provided in the Report, the following is a complete excerpt of the Case History for Asif Zardari. The report also provides photocopies of signed documents, banks records, etc. (listed below, at the end).
[Beginning of Excerpt]
(2) Asif Ali Zardari Case History
The Facts
The second case history involves Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan. Ms. Bhutto was elected Prime Minister in 1988, dismissed by the President of Pakistan in August 1990 for alleged corruption and inability to maintain law and order, elected Prime Minister again in October 1993, and dismissed by the President again in November 1996. At various times, Mr. Zardari served as Senator, Environment Minister and Minister for Investment in the Bhutto government. In between the two Bhutto administrations, he was incarcerated in 1990 and 1991 on charges of corruption; the charges were eventually dropped. During Ms. Bhutto’s second term there were increasing allegations of corruption in her government, and a major target of those allegations was Mr. Zardari. It has been reported that the government of Pakistan claims that Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Zardari stole over $1 billion from the country.
During the period 1994 to 1997, Citibank opened and maintained three private bank accounts in Switzerland and a consumer account in Dubai for three corporations under Mr. Zardari’s control. There are allegations that some of these accounts were used to disguise $10 million in kickbacks for a gold importing contract to Pakistan.
Structure of Private Bank Relationship. Mr. Zardari’s relationship with Citibank began in October 1994, through the services of Kamran Amouzegar, a private banker at Citibank private bank in Switzerland, and Jens Schlegelmilch, a Swiss lawyer who was the Bhutto family’s attorney in Europe and close personal friend for more than 20 years. According to Citibank, Mr. Schlegelmilch represented to Mr. Amouzegar that he was working for the Dubai royal family and he wanted to open some accounts at the Citibank branch office in Dubai. Mr. Schlegelmilch had a Dubai residency permit and a visa signed by a member of the Dubai royal family. Mr. Amouzegar agreed to introduce Mr. Schlegelmilch to a banker in the Citibank branch office in Dubai.
According to Citicorp, Mr. Schlegelmilch told the Citibank Dubai banker that he wanted to open an account in the name of M.S. Capricorn Trading, a British Virgin Island PIC. The stated purpose of the account was to receive money and transfer it to Switzerland. The account was opened in early October 1994.
According to Citibank, Mr. Schlegelmilch informed the Dubai banker that he would serve as the representative of the account and the signatory on the account. Under Dubai law, a bank is not required to know an account’s beneficial owner, only the signatory. Citibank told the Subcommittee staff that Mr. Schlegelmilch did not reveal to the Dubai banker that Mr. Zardari was the beneficial owner of the PIC [Private Investment Company: an offshore company often used to launder money], and the account manager never asked him the identity of the beneficial owner of the account. Instead, according to Citibank, she assumed the beneficial owner of the account was the member of the royal family who had signed Mr. Schlegelmilch’s visa. According to Citibank, the account manager actually performed some due diligence on the royal family member whom she believed to be the beneficial owner of the account.
Shortly after opening the account in Dubai, Mr. Schlegelmilch signed a standard referral agreement with Citibank Switzerland private bank guaranteeing him 20% of the first three years of client net revenues earned by the bank from each client he referred to the private bank.
On February 27, 1995, Mr. Schlegelmilch, working with Mr. Amouzegar, opened three accounts at the Citibank Switzerland private bank. The accounts were opened in the name of M.S. Capricorn Trading, which already had an account at Citibank’s Dubai branch, as well as Marvel and Bomer Finance, two other British Virgin Island PICs established by Mr. Schlegelmilch, according to Citibank. Each private bank account listed Mr. Schlegelmilch as the account contact and signatory. Citibank informed the Subcommittee that the Swiss Form A, a government-required beneficial owner identification form, identified Mr. Zardari as the beneficial owner of each PIC.
Lack of Due Diligence. The decision to allow Mr. Schlegelmilch to open the three accounts on behalf of Mr. Zardari, according to Citibank, involved officials at the highest levels of the private bank. The officials were: (a) Mr. Amouzegar, the private banker; (b) Deepak Sharma, then head of private bank operations in Pakistan; (c) Phillipe Holderbeke, then head of private bank operations in Switzerland (who became head of the Europe, Middle East, Africa Division in February 1996); (d) Salim Raza, then head of the EMEA Division of the private bank; and (e) Hubertus Rukavina, then head of the Citibank private bank. Mr. Rukavina told the Subcommittee staff that when he was asked about opening the Zardari accounts, he did not make the decision to open them, but rather directed that the matter be discussed with Mr. Sharma. According to Mr. Rukavina, he never heard whether the accounts were ultimately opened. Mr. Rukavina left the private bank in 1996 and left Citibank in 1999.
Citibank informed the Subcommittee staff that the private bank was aware of the allegations of corruption against Mr. Zardari at the time it opened the accounts in Switzerland. However, Citibank reasoned that if the charges for which Mr. Zardari had been incarcerated for two years had any merit, they would not have been dropped. Bank officials also believed that the family wealth of Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Zardari was large enough to support a large private bank account, even though Citibank was not able to specify what actions were taken to verify the amount and source of their wealth. Citibank said that bank officials were also aware of the M.S. Capricorn Trading account in Dubai, and they were comforted by the fact that there had been no problems with that account. According to Citibank, Mr. Amouzegar informed his superiors that Mr. Zardari was the beneficial owner of the Capricorn account in Dubai when they were considering the request to open the accounts in Switzerland. Inexplicably, however, the Dubai account manager was apparently still operating under the assumption that the beneficial owner of the Dubai Capricorn account was a member of the Dubai royal family. Subcommittee staff have been unable to determine whether Citibank officials were unaware of or inattentive to the serious inconsistency between Citibank Switzerland and Citibank Dubai with respect to the Capricorn Trading account. Citibank also informed the Subcommittee staff that bank officials had some concerns that if they turned down the accounts, their actions may have implications for the corporation’s operations in Pakistan; however, they said they never received any threats on that issue.
Citibank told the Subcommittee staff the private bank decided to allow Mr. Schlegelmilch to open the three accounts for Mr. Zardari on the condition that the private bank would not be the primary accounts for Mr. Zardari’s assets and the accounts would function as passive investment accounts. Citibank told the Subcommittee staff that Mr. Holderbeke signed a memo delineating the restrictions placed on the accounts, including a $40 million aggregate limit on the size of the three accounts, and transaction restrictions requiring the accounts to function as passive, stable investments, without multiple transactions or funding pass-throughs. None of the Citibank personnel interviewed by Subcommittee staff could identify any other private bank account with these types of restrictions. Other private banks interviewed by the Subcommittee staff were asked if they had ever accepted a client on the condition that certain restrictions be imposed on the account. The banks all said they had not. One bank representative explained that if the bank felt that it needed to place restrictions on the client’s account, it didn’t want that type of client. The existence of the restrictions are in themselves proof of the private bank’s awareness of Mr. Zardari’s poor reputation and concerns regarding the sources of his wealth.
Movement of Funds. Citibank told the Subcommittee staff that, once opened, only three deposits were made into the M.S. Capricorn Trading account in Dubai. Two deposits, totaling $10 million were made into the account almost immediately after it was opened. Citibank records show that one $5 million deposit was made on October 5,1994, and another was made on October 6, 1994. The source of both deposits was A.R.Y. International Exchange, a company owned by Abdul Razzak Yaqub [since then, the owner of several ARY television channels that, incidentally, have been providing favorable coverage of Ms. Bhutto’s recent political activities], a Pakistani gold bullion trader living in Dubai.
According to the New York Times, in December 1994, the Bhutto government awarded Mr. Razzak an exclusive gold import license. In an interview with the New York Times, Mr. Razzak acknowledged that he had used the exclusive license to import more than $500 million worth of gold into Pakistan. Mr. Razzak denies, however, making any payments to Mr. Zardari. Citibank could not explain the two $5 million payments. Ms. Bhutto told the Subcommittee staff that since A.R.Y. International Exchange is a foreign exchange business, the payments did not necessarily come from Mr. Razzak, but could have come from a third party who was merely making use of A.R.Y.’s exchange services. The staff invited Ms. Bhutto to provide additional information on the M.S. Capricorn Trading accounts, but she has not yet done so.
On February 25, 1995, a third deposit of $8 million was made into the Dubai M.S. Capricorn Trading account. Records show that the payment was made through American Express, with the originator of the account listed as “Morgan NYC.” Citibank indicated it does not know who Morgan NYC is, nor does it know the source of the $8 million.
All of the funds in the Dubai account of M.S. Capricorn Trading were moved to the Swiss accounts in the Spring of 1995. On March 6, 1995, $8.1 million was transferred; and on May 5, 1995, another $10.2 million was transferred. Both transfers involved U.S. dollars and were routed through Citibank’s New York offices. Citibank informed the Subcommittee staff that M.S. Capricorn Trading closed its Dubai account shortly after the last transfer was completed.
Citibank has indicated that significant amounts of other funds were also deposited into the Swiss accounts. As described below, the $40 million cap was reached, and millions of additional dollars also passed through those accounts. However, Swiss bank secrecy law has prevented the Subcommittee from obtaining the details on the transactions in the Zardari accounts.
Account Monitoring. Citibank told the Subcommittee staff that, in 1996, the Swiss office of the private bank conducted a number of reviews of the Zardari Swiss accounts, finally deciding in October to close them.
The first review was allegedly in early 1996, triggered by increasing publicity about allegations of corruption against Mr. Zardari. Citibank told the Subcommittee staff that Messrs. Holderbeke, [Salim] Raza, Sharma and Amouzegar participated in the review, and apparently concluded that the allegations were politically motivated and that the accounts should remain open. The Subcommittee staff was told that the review did not include looking at the accounts’ transaction activity.
In March or April, 1996, Mr. Amouzegar asked that the overall limit on the Zardari accounts be increased from $40 million to $60 million, apparently because the accounts had reached the previously imposed limit of $40 million. Citibank told the Subcommittee staff that Mr. Holderbeke considered the request, but declined to increase the $40 million limit.
In June, press reports in the United Kingdom that Mr. Zardari had purchased real estate in London triggered still another review of the Zardari accounts. Citibank private bank told the Subcommittee staff that its Swiss office internally discussed the source of the funds for the property purchase. Mr. Amouzegar and Mr. [Salim] Raza then met with Mr. Schlegelmilch, who allegedly informed them that funds had been deposited into the Citibank accounts, transferred to another PIC account outside of Citibank and used to purchase the property. Mr. Schlegelmilch allegedly indicated the funds had come from the sale of some sugar mills and were legitimate. Citibank told the Subcommittee staff it is not sure if anyone at the private bank attempted to validate the information about the sale of the sugar mills. In addition, even though this account activity violated the condition imposed by Citibank that the accounts were not to be used as a pass through for funds, the accounts were kept open.
Closing the Accounts. In July 1996, after Mr. Amouzegar left the private bank to open his own company, another private banker, Cedric Grant, took over management of the Zardari accounts. Citibank told the Subcommittee staff that Mr. Grant began to review the Zardari accounts about one month later to familiarize himself with them. He also reviewed the transactions that had taken place within the accounts.
In September and October 1996, press accounts in Pakistan repeatedly raised questions about corruption by Mr. Zardari and Ms. Bhutto, as Ms. Bhutto’s re-election campaign increased its activities prior to a February election date. In September, Ms. Bhutto’s only surviving brother, Murtaza Bhutto, was assassinated, and Ms. Bhutto’s mother accused Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Zardari of masterminding the murder, because the brother had been leading opposition to Ms. Bhutto.
In October, Mr. Grant completed his review of the Zardari accounts and provided a written analysis to Messrs. Holderbeke, Sharma and [Salim] Raza, according to Citibank. Mr. Grant had found numerous violations of the account restrictions imposed by Citibank, including multiple transactions and funding pass-throughs. Citibank told the Subcommittee staff that the accounts had functioned more as checking accounts than passive investment accounts, directly contrary to the private bank’s restrictions. Apparently, well over $40 million had flowed through the accounts, though Subcommittee staff were unable to ascertain the actual amount because Swiss bank secrecy law prohibits Citibank from sharing that information with the Subcommittee. Citibank indicated that Mr. Amouzegar had either ignored or did not pay attention to the account activity. Mr. Grant recommended closing the accounts, and they were closed by January 1997.
[Note: In May 1997, Mr. Shaukat Aziz was transferred at Citibank’s New York headquarters, from his position as head of credit card operations to head of private banking. In November 1996, Mr. Farooq Laghari had dismissed the government of Ms. Benazir Bhutto-Zardari; and in February 1997, Mr. Nawaz Sharif became Prime Minister.]
Legal Proceedings. On September 8, 1997, the Swiss government issued orders freezing the Zardari and Bhutto accounts at Citibank and three other banks in Switzerland at the request of the Pakistani government. Since Citibank had closed its Zardari accounts in January 1997, it took no action nor did it make any effort to inform U.S. authorities of the accounts until late November 1997. Citibank contacted the Federal Reserve and OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the banking supervision arm of the US Department of Treasury] about the Zardari accounts in late November, in anticipation of a New York Times article that eventually ran in January 1998, alleging that Mr. Zardari had accepted bribes, and that he held Citibank accounts in Dubai and Switzerland. On December 8 and 11, 1997, Citibank briefed the OCC and the Federal Reserve, respectively, about the accounts and the steps it had taken as a result of the Zardari matter. These steps included: closing all of the accounts that had been referred by Mr. Schlegelmilch to the private bank and terminating his referral agreement; reviewing all of the accounts opened in the Dubai office; and tightening up account opening procedures in Dubai, including requiring the Dubai office to identify the beneficial owner of all Dubai accounts. Citibank did not identify any changes made or planned for the Swiss office, even though the majority of the activity with respect to the Zardari accounts had taken place in Switzerland.
On December 5, 1997, Citibank prepared a Suspicious Activity Report on the Zardari accounts and filed it with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the U.S. Department of Treasury. The filing was made fourteen months after its decision to close the Zardari accounts; thirteen months after Mr. Zardari was arrested a second time for corruption in November 1996; and nearly two months after the Swiss government had ordered four Swiss banks (including Citibank Switzerland) to freeze all Zardari accounts.
In June 1998, Switzerland indicted Mr. Schlegelmilch and two Swiss businessmen, the former senior executive vice president of SGS and the managing director of Cotecna, for money laundering in connection with kickbacks paid by the Swiss companies for the award of a government contract by Pakistan. In July 1998, Mr. Zardari was indicted for violation of Swiss money laundering law in connection with the same incident. Ms. Bhutto was indicted in Switzerland for the same offense in August 1998. A trial on the charges is expected.
In October 1998, Pakistan indicted Mr. Zardari and Ms. Bhutto for accepting kickbacks from the two Swiss companies in exchange for the award of a government contract. On April 15, 1999, after an 18-month trial, Pakistan’s Lahore High Court convicted Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Zardari of accepting the kickbacks and sentenced them to 5 years in prison, fined them $8.6 million and disqualified them from holding public office. Ms. Bhutto, who now lives in London, denounced the decision. Mr. Zardari remains in jail. Additional criminal charges are pending against both in Pakistani courts.
On December 11, 1997, Citicorp’s Chairman John Reed wrote the following to the Board of Directors:
“We have another issue with the husband of Ex-Prime Minister Bhutto of Pakistan. I do not yet understand the facts but I am inclined to think that we made a mistake. More reason than ever to rework our Private Bank.”
Mr. Reed told the Subcommittee staff that it was the combination of the Salinas and Zardari accounts that made him charge Mr. [Shaukat] Aziz [currently, Prime Minister of Pakistan], the new private bank head, with taking a hard look at the bank’s public figure policy and public figure accounts.
The Issues
The Zardari case history raises issues involving due diligence, secrecy and public figure accounts. The Zardari case history begins with the Citibank Dubai branch’s failure to identify the true beneficial owner of the M.S. Capricorn Trading account. As a result, the account officer in Dubai performed due diligence on an individual who had no relationship to the account being opened. In Switzerland, Citibank officials opened three private bank accounts despite evidence of impropriety on the part of Mr. Zardari. In an interview with Subcommittee staff, Citigroup Co-Chair John Reed informed the Subcommittee staff that he had been advised by Citibank officials in preparation for a trip to Pakistan in February 1994, that there were troubling accusations concerning corruption surrounding Mr. Zardari, that he should stay away from him, and that he was not a man with whom the bank wanted to be associated. Yet one year later, the private bank opened three accounts for Mr. Zardari in Switzerland. Mr. Reed told the Subcommittee staff that when he learned of the Zardari accounts he thought the account officer must have been “an idiot.”
Citibank has been unable to confirm that bank employees verified that Mr. Zardari had a level of wealth sufficient to support the size of the accounts that he was opening. In addition, the Swiss private banker took no action to validate the legitimacy of the source of the funds that were deposited into the account. For example, there was no effort made to verify the claims that some of the funds derived from the sale of sugar mills.
Citibank also performed no due diligence on the client owned and managed PICs that were the named accountholders. Because the PICs were client-created, the bank’s failure to perform due diligence on the PICs meant that it had no knowledge of the activities, assets or entities involved with the corporations. One of the PICs, Bomer Finance, has been determined to have been a repository for kickbacks paid to Mr. Zardari, and those kickbacks tainted funds deposited at the Geneva branch of Union Bank of Switzerland. Documentation has not been made available to determine whether Bomer Finance also used its Citibank account for illicit funds.
Another due diligence lapse was the private bank’s failure to monitor the Zardari accounts to ensure that the account restrictions imposed on them were being followed. When officials were presented with evidence in 1996 that the restrictions were being violated, they nevertheless allowed the accounts to continue.
The Zardari accounts in Switzerland were opened one day before Raul Salinas was arrested. The account was repeatedly reviewed in 1996, after the Salinas scandal became public. Yet there is no evidence that anyone in the private bank had been sensitized to the problems associated with handling an account of a person suspected of corruption.
The Zardari example also demonstrates the practical consequences of secrecy in private banking. Citibank claims that its decisionmaking in the Zardari matter cannot be fully explained or documented, since all Citibank officials are subject to Swiss secrecy laws prohibiting discussion of client-specific information. In light of the fact that U.S. banks are supposed to oversee their foreign branches and enforce U.S. law, including anti-money laundering requirements, this inability to produce documentation related to a troubling case again highlights the problems with U.S. banks choosing to operate in secrecy jurisdictions.
Pattern of Poor Account Management. The Zardari case history took place during a series of critical internal and federal audits between 1992 and 1997 of the Swiss office which, during most of that time, served as the headquarters of the private bank. The shortcomings identified in the audits included policies, procedures, and problems that affected the management of the Zardari accounts. They included:
* failure of the “corporate culture” in the Swiss office to foster ” ‘a climate of integrity, ethical conduct and prudent risk taking’ by U.S. standards”;
* inadequate due diligence;
* “less than acceptable internal controls”;
* lack of oversight and control of third party referral agents such as Schlegelmilch; and
* inadequate monitoring of accounts;
all of which resulted in “unacceptable” internal audit ratings. In December 1995, the Swiss office received the lowest audit score received by any office in the private bank during the 1990s. These audit scores indicate the office’s poor handling of the Zardari accounts was part of an ongoing pattern of poor account management.
[End of excerpt]
======
Source: MINORITY STAFF REPORT FOR PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS HEARING ON PRIVATE BANKING AND MONEY LAUNDERING: A CASE STUDY OF OPPORTUNITIES AND VULNERABILITIES, November 9, 1999
http://www.senate.gov/~gov_affairs/110999_report.htm
The Report features as an annex to
S. Hrg. 106-248
PRIVATE BANKING AND MONEY LAUNDERING: A CASE STUDY OF OPPORTUNITIES AND VULNERABILITIES, Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Sixth Congress, First Session, November 9 and 10, 1999.
This xiv+1114 pages report is available at:
http://www.gpo.gov/congress/senate/senate12sh106.html
as TEXT [424KB] and as PDF [30MB] files
It provides (on page numbers indicated) the following:
Documents relating to Asif Ali Zardari:
a. Swiss Form A identifying Asif Ali Zardari as the
beneficial owner of the Capricorn Trading S.A.
account in the Citibank Private Bank in Switzerland
[600]…………………………………. 445
[Signed by “Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal House, Karachi
(Pak)”]
b. Wire transfer records documenting transfers of $18
million into Mr. Zardari’s Capricorn Trading S.A.
account in Dubai and transfers of $18.3 million out
of the Dubai account into the Capricorn Trading S.A.
account in Citibank Private Bank in Switzerland
……………………………………… 446
10/5/94 transfer of $5 million from A.R.Y. International
Exchange into the Capricorn Trading S.A. account in
Citibank in Dubai [X6903-4];
10/6/94 transfer of $5 million from A.R.Y. International
Exchange into the Capricorn Trading S.A. account in
Citibank in Dubai [X6900-2];
2/24/95 transfer of $8 million from Morgan NYC into the
Capricorn Trading S.A. account in Citibank in Dubai;
3/6/95 transfer of $8.1 million from the Capricorn
Trading S.A. account in Citibank in Dubai into the
Capricorn Trading S.A. account in Citibank Private Bank
in Switzerland;
5/3/95 transfer of $10.2 million from the Capricorn
Trading S.A. account in Citibank in Dubai into the
Capricorn Trading S.A. account in Citibank Private Bank
in Switzerland;
5/4/94 record of Citibank Private Bank in Switzerland
credit of $10.2 million to account of Capricorn Trading
S.A.
c. Mandate Agreement between Asif Ali Zardari and Jens
Schlegelmilch concerning Bomer Finance, Inc.
[601-2]………………………………… 466
d. Mandate Agreement between Begum Nusrat Bhutto and Jens
Schlegelmilch concerning Mariston Securities, Inc.
[603-4]………………………………… 468
e. British Virgin Islands Certificate of Incorporation
for Capricorn Trading S.A.
[605]………………………………….. 470
f. 6/29/94 letter from Cotecna Inspection S.A., stating
that if it receives a contract from the government of
Pakistan for the inspection and price verification of
imported goods, it will pay Mariston Securities, Inc.,
6 percent of the payments made under the contract
[597]………………………………….. 471
g. 12/11/97 communication from John Reed to Citibank Board,
including a discussion of the Zardari matter.. 472
h. List of meetings between Mr. Zardari and Citibank
personnel, provided by Citibank ………….. 474
US Bank Money Laundering –
Enormous By Any Measure
By James Petras
Professor of Sociology, Binghamton University
9-1-2
There is a consensus among U.S. Congressional Investigators, former bankers and international banking experts that U.S. and European banks launder between $500 billion and $1 trillion of dirty money each year, half of which is laundered by U.S. banks alone. As Senator Carl Levin summarizes the record: “Estimates are that $500 billion to $1 trillion of international criminal proceeds are moved internationally and deposited into bank accounts annually. It is estimated that half of that money comes to the United States”.
Over a decade then, between $2.5 and $5 trillion criminal proceeds have been laundered by U.S. banks and circulated in the U.S. financial circuits. Senator Levin’s statement however, only covers criminal proceeds, according to U.S. laws. It does not include illegal transfers and capital flows from corrupt political leaders, or tax evasion by overseas businesses. A leading U.S. scholar who is an expert on international finance associated with the prestigious Brookings Institute estimates “the flow of corrupt money out of developing (Third World) and transitional (ex-Communist) economies into Western coffers at $20 to $40 billion a year and the flow stemming from mis-priced trade at $80 billion a year or more. My lowest estimate is $100 billion per year by these two means by which we facilitated a trillion dollars in the decade, at least half to the United States. Including the other elements of illegal flight capital would produce much higher figures. The Brookings expert also did not include illegal shifts of real estate and securities titles, wire fraud, etc.
In other words, an incomplete figure of dirty money (laundered criminal and corrupt money) flowing into U.S. coffers during the 1990s amounted to $3-$5.5 trillion. This is not the complete picture but it gives us a basis to estimate the significance of the “dirty money factor” in evaluating the U.S. economy. In the first place, it is clear that the combined laundered and dirty money flows cover part of the U.S. deficit in its balance of merchandise trade which ranges in the hundreds of billions annually. As it stands, the U.S. trade deficit is close to $300 billion. Without the “dirty money” the U.S. economy external accounts would be totally unsustainable, living standards would plummet, the dollar would weaken, the available investment and loan capital would shrink and Washington would not be able to sustain its global empire. And the importance of laundered money is forecast to increase. Former private banker Antonio Geraldi, in testimony before the Senate Subcommittee projects significant growth in U.S. bank laundering. “The forecasters also predict the amounts laundered in the trillions of dollars and growing disproportionately to legitimate funds.” The $500 billion of criminal and dirty money flowing into and through the major U.S. banks far exceeds the net revenues of all the IT companies in the U.S., not to speak of their profits. These yearly inflows surpass all the net transfers by the major U.S. oil producers, military industries and airplane manufacturers. The biggest U.S. banks, particularly Citibank, derive a high percentage of their banking profits from serving these criminal and dirty money accounts. The big U.S. banks and key institutions sustain U.S. global power via their money laundering and managing of illegally obtained overseas funds.
U.S. Banks and The Dirty Money Empire
Washington and the mass media have portrayed the U.S. as being in the forefront of the struggle against narco trafficking, drug laundering and political corruption: the image is of clean white hands fighting dirty money. The truth is exactly the opposite. U.S. banks have developed a highly elaborate set of policies for transferring illicit funds to the U.S., investing those funds in legitimate businesses or U.S. government bonds and legitimating them. The U.S. Congress has held numerous hearings, provided detailed exposés of the illicit practices of the banks, passed several laws and called for stiffer enforcement by any number of public regulators and private bankers. Yet the biggest banks continue their practices, the sum of dirty money grows exponentially, because both the State and the banks have neither the will nor the interest to put an end to the practices that provide high profits and buttress an otherwise fragile empire.
First thing to note about the money laundering business, whether criminal or corrupt, is that it is carried out by the most important banks in the USA. Secondly, the practices of bank officials involved in money laundering have the backing and encouragement of the highest levels of the banking institutions – these are not isolated cases by loose cannons. This is clear in the case of Citibank’s laundering of Raul Salinas (brother of Mexico’s ex-President) $200 million account. When Salinas was arrested and his large scale theft of government funds was exposed, his private bank manager at Citibank, Amy Elliott told her colleagues that “this goes in the very, very top of the corporation, this was known…on the very top. We are little pawns in this whole thing” (p.35).
Citibank, the biggest money launderer, is the biggest bank in the U.S., with 180,000 employees world-wide operating in 100 countries, with $700 billion in known assets and over $100 billion in client assets in private bank (secret accounts) operating private banking offices in 30 countries, which is the largest global presence of any U.S. private bank. It is important to clarify what is meant by “private bank.”
Private Banking is a sector of a bank which caters to extremely wealthy clients ($1 million deposits and up). The big banks charge customers a fee for managing their assets and for providing the specialized services of the private banks. Private Bank services go beyond the routine banking services and include investment guidance, estate planning, tax assistance, off-shore accounts, and complicated schemes designed to secure the confidentiality of financial transactions. The attractiveness of the “Private Banks” (PB) for money laundering is that they sell secrecy to the dirty money clients. There are two methods that big Banks use to launder money: via private banks and via correspondent banking. PB routinely use code names for accounts, concentration accounts (concentration accounts co-mingles bank funds with client funds which cut off paper trails for billions of dollars of wire transfers) that disguise the movement of client funds, and offshore private investment corporations (PIC) located in countries with strict secrecy laws (Cayman Island, Bahamas, etc.)
For example, in the case of Raul Salinas, PB personnel at Citibank helped Salinas transfer $90 to $100 million out of Mexico in a manner that effectively disguised the funds’ sources and destination thus breaking the funds’ paper trail. In routine fashion, Citibank set up a dummy offshore corporation, provided Salinas with a secret code name, provided an alias for a third party intermediary who deposited the money in a Citibank account in Mexico and transferred the money in a concentration account to New York where it was then moved to Switzerland and London. The PICs are designed by the big banks for the purpose of holding and hiding a person’s assets. The nominal officers, trustees and shareholder of these shell corporations are themselves shell corporations controlled by the PB. The PIC then becomes the holder of the various bank and investment accounts and the ownership of the private bank clients is buried in the records of so-called jurisdiction such as the Cayman Islands. Private bankers of the big banks like Citibank keep pre-packaged PICs on the shelf awaiting activation when a private bank client wants one. The system works like Russian Matryoshka dolls, shells within shells within shells, which in the end can be impenetrable to a legal process.
The complicity of the state in big bank money laundering is evident when one reviews the historic record. Big bank money laundering has been investigated, audited, criticized and subject to legislation; the banks have written procedures to comply. Yet banks like Citibank and the other big ten banks ignore the procedures and laws and the government ignores the non-compliance. Over the last 20 years, big bank laundering of criminal funds and looted funds has increased geometrically, dwarfing in size and rates of profit the activities in the formal economy. Estimates by experts place the rate of return in the PB market between 20-25% annually. Congressional investigations revealed that Citibank provided “services” for 4 political swindlers moving $380 million: Raul Salinas – $80-$100 million, Asif Ali Zardari (husband of former Prime Minister of Pakistan) in excess of $40 million, El Hadj Omar Bongo (dictator of Gabon since 1967) in excess of $130 million, the Abacha sons of General Abacha ex-dictator of Nigeria – in excess of $110 million. In all cases Citibank violated all of its own procedures and government guidelines: there was no client profile (review of client background), determination of the source of the funds, nor of any violations of country laws from which the money accrued. On the contrary, the bank facilitated the outflow in its prepackaged format: shell corporations were established, code names were provided, funds were moved through concentration accounts, the funds were invested in legitimate businesses or in U.S. bonds, etc. In none of these cases – or thousands of others – was due diligence practiced by the banks (under due diligence a private bank is obligated by law to take steps to ensure that it does not facilitate money laundering). In none of these cases were the top banking officials brought to court and tried. Even after arrest of their clients, Citibank continued to provide services, including the movement of funds to secret accounts and the provision of loans.
Correspondent Banks: The Second Track
The second and related route which the big banks use to launder hundreds of billions of dirty money is through “correspondent banking” (CB). CB is the provision of banking services by one bank to another bank. It is a highly profitable and significant sector of big banking. It enables overseas banks to conduct business and provide services for their customers – including drug dealers and others engaged in criminal activity – in jurisdictions like the U.S. where the banks have no physical presence. A bank that is licensed in a foreign country and has no office in the United States for its customers attracts and retains wealthy criminal clients interested in laundering money in the U.S. Instead of exposing itself to U.S. controls and incurring the high costs of locating in the U.S., the bank will open a correspondent account with an existing U.S. bank. By establishing such a relationship, the foreign bank (called a respondent) and through it, its criminal customers, receive many or all of the services offered by the U.S. big banks called the correspondent.
Today, all the big U.S. banks have established multiple correspondent relationships throughout the world so they may engage in international financial transactions for themselves and their clients in places where they do have a physical presence. Many of the largest U.S. and European banks located in the financial centers of the world serve as correspondents for thousands of other banks. Most of the offshore banks laundering billions for criminal clients have accounts in the U.S. All the big banks specializing in international fund transfer are called money center banks, some of the biggest process up to $1 trillion in wire transfers a day. For the billionaire criminals an important feature of correspondent relationships is that they provide access to international transfer systems – that facilitate the rapid transfer of funds across international boundaries and within countries. The most recent estimates (1998) are that 60 offshore jurisdictions around the world licensed about 4,000 offshore banks which control approximately $5 trillion in assets.
One of the major sources of impoverishment and crises in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Russia and the other countries of the ex-U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, is the pillage of the economy and the hundreds of billions of dollars which are transferred out of the country via the corresponding banking system and the Private Banking system linked to the biggest banks in the U.S. and Europe. Russia alone has seen over $200 billion illegally transferred in the course of the 1990s. The massive shift of capital from these countries to the U.S. and European banks has generated mass impoverishment and economic instability and crises. This in turn has created increased vulnerability to pressure from the IMF and World Bank to liberalize their banking and financial systems leading to further flight and deregulation which spawns greater corruption and overseas transfers via private banks as the Senate reports demonstrate.
The increasing polarization of the world is embedded in this organized system of criminal and corrupt financial transactions. While speculation and foreign debt payments play a role in undermining living standards in the crisis regions, the multi-trillion dollar money laundering and bank servicing of corrupt officials is a much more significant factor, sustaining Western prosperity, U.S. empire building and financial stability. The scale, scope and time frame of transfers and money laundering, the centrality of the biggest banking enterprises and the complicity of the governments, strongly suggests that the dynamics of growth and stagnation, empire and re-colonization are intimately related to a new form of capitalism built around pillage, criminality, corruption and complicity.
James Petras is a Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. He is the author of 57 books. His latest, Globalization Unmasked: Imperialism in the New Millenium
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Posted by ali rehan munir in Indus River of Life for Pakistan on April 21st, 2013
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Water Conflicts and Hydroelectricity in South Asia
The Indus Water Treaty. A Review article
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Transboundary river water distribution agreements tethering neighboring countries are overstretched, at least between Pakistan and India. Tens of hydropower dam on the Western Indus Basin rivers have been transformed into a real threat to “lower riparian”.
Underground water pumping in excess of natural recharge rates has reached a stage of continued free fall in the Indus Basin. The energy crisis, the economic meltdown, global warming and climate change scenarios require fine-tuned transboundary laws to share the international rivers. This work points out dire need of new global water laws to sort out real transboundary river conflicts transforming into water wars. “A Business as usual approach” may transform water skirmishes into full fledged armed conflict. Water is life affects the underlying geopolitical realities. 1. Water and Power Nexus Hydroelectricity is the prevalent most economic source of white energy. There is little chance of inventing a genius innovatory energy source anytime soon that will not engage nations to water conflicts to produce electric power. Hydroelectricity is derived from gravitational force (potential energy) of the flowing or falling waters. A hydropower house may take the form of a run-of-river (flowing) or dam (falling). Hydroelectric power plants use water turbines instead of water wheel. The Water turbine has a swirling component for force to pass on kinetic energy to spinning rotor. French engineer, Bernard Forest de Belidor, conceived the idea of water power in the 1770s. Different types of turbines such as Francis (1849), Pelton (1879) and Kaplan (1913) are considered suitable for10-350, 50-1300 and 2-40m heads whereas waterwheels are used for 0.2-4m falls. Typical capacities of pico, micro, small, medium and large dams are <5 kW, 5 to 100 kW, 100 to 10 MW, 10 to 10,000 MW and >10 GW. There only three large dams worldwide namely Three Gorges Dam (22.5 GW), Itaipu Dam (14 GW) and Guri Dam (10.2 GW). Global small scale hydropower capacity is 85 GW out of which 65 GW in China, 3.5 GW in Japan, 3 GW in USA and 2 GW in India. Norway, Brazil, Venezuela, Canada, andSweden produce 98.25, 85.56, 67.17, 61.12 and 44.34% of their national power demands by hydro power plants. Hydropower is considered the cleanest white energy.
The World’s first DC hydropower house, Cragside in Northumberland, was operated in England (UK) in 1878. Thomas Edison invented the first long life incandescent lamp in 1879 before which carbon filament based short lived lamps were available. The first US Niagara hydropower station started delivering DC electricity in 1881. Nicolas Tesla invented the first three phase AC generator used in the Niagara Falls hydro station. Most European countries got hydropower stations from 1880 to 1890 simultaneously. The British brought this technology to India in the early 1900s. The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) was established in Pakistan in 1959. The British government had already developed large barrages and canals systems for irrigation. WAPDA engineers constructed 1000 MW Mangla dam in 1867, 3500 MW Tarbella dam in 1976 and 2000 run-of-river Chashma power house in 2004. World’s largest hydropower producers are China, Canada, USA, Brazil, Russia, India, Norway and Japan which have total installed capacities of 196.79, 88.974, 79.511, 69.08, 45.00, 33.60, 27.528 and 27.229GW. Famous Chinese three gorges dam since 1994 produces 22,500 MW electricity and proposed Congo Grand Inga dam will produce 39,000 MW by 2014. A 50,000 MW dam is under proposal on the Red Sea. China’s installed hydropower capacity is more than the total combined hydropower capacities of USA, Canada and Japan. Chinese hydropower generation capacity is about six times more than that of India and 33 times more than Pakistan’s hydropower generation. India’s hydropower generation capacity is about 5-6 times more than Pakistan’s, yet it is building dozens of dams on rivers which were given to Pakistan under the Indus Water Treaty in 1960. India had 300 dams in 1947. This number increased to 4000 by 2000. About 70% of new dams were built during the 1971-1989 period.
2. Transboundary Rivers Conflicts
Water Conflicts and Hydroelectricity in South Asia
The Indus Water Treaty. A Review article
Fair water distribution is one of the key issues in Israel-Palestinian agreement today (David and Julie, 2010). Arab-Israel conflict is getting aggravated by water conflicts (Mustafa, 1994). Israel is also trying to secure access to Nile, Euphrates and Ceyhan in Turkey. Global research observers blame Israel for stealing Arab waters (Sawsan, 2010). People have been occupying waters since antiquity but the water flows today and they have gone the same is going to happen with present and future generations.
Historic wrecks are often the source of conflict as well as consensus (Paul and Craig, 2000). Transboundary water conflicts cannot be resolved using game theory geopolitics bearing undercurrents (Kaveh, 2010). Fair rules must be developed by United Nations in the name of International Rivers Water Sharing Laws. Shared river waters conflicts are both of the inter and intra state types (Hans et al, 2000) that require global laws to safeguard lower riparian (Paul et al, 2006). Without UN backed water laws, the long held agreements may break leading to political confrontations (Eran, 2000). Water distribution experts have already proposed several models (Irene et al, 1986; Marc et al, 1987; Giordano et al, 2007, Joseph et al, 2004) that facilitate the UN to formulate transboundary water sharing and conflict resolution laws. Mass migrations and water conflicts intensification has been noted in Tanzania since last one decade (Milline, 2005) and Pakistan during August 2010 floods. The developed countries sustain dilemmas in developing countries that lead to talent migration causing serious blows to economies of developing countries (Schon and Ian, 2009).
The Water situation is getting worse in the USA and China. It is extremely critical in Brazil, and in India and Pakistan where the underground water table is falling at rate of 3-5cm per year. India is building several dozen dams and diversion canals on shared rivers; Indian hydro tactics have caused droughts and flash floods horrors in Pakistan. India is constructing 24-25 dams on river Chenab that feeds to central Punjab housing 90-100 million people. India relates it to her growing power needs but Pakistan takes it aqua bomb capable of causing droughts and flash floods. The Recent flash flood due to monsoons rains and timed injection of Indian dam waters has inflicted 25000 lives, 1-2 billion crops and 5-7 billion property losses. The United Nations have no global law on transboundary water distribution. Due to natural scarcity of freshwaters, concerned experts have long been warning of water wars (Swain, 2001; Richard and Robert, 1996; Grayling, 2008; Michael and Glen, 2008, Kay, 2009). European and Americans water agreements under Helsinki Rules and the International Law Commission Convention on Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Water courses have been universalized for global water treaties which have no consensus across the board. Despite 2 dams on Beas, 4 on Sutlej, 6 on Ravi, 7 on Indus, 8 on Jhelum and 24 on Chenab India assumes full right on all six rivers falling down to Pakistan and blames colonial period water laws creating schism that locks the water sector into a developmental catharsis (Radha, 2002).
In response to a satellite research on ground water depletion in Punjab (Matthew and Isabella et al, 2009) reporting underground water table declining rate of 3-5cm/yr, an Indian water expert tried to justify multiple dams policy on western Pakistani rivers as a sensible measure to mitigate their water depletion crisis (Saumitra, 2009). Pakistan, being downstream riparian, supports Radha’s demand for international legislature on transboundary water sharing laws to avoid water conflicts but does not support Saumitra’s innovatory policy to steal others waters to solve own problems. Pakistan proposes United Nations to frame laws governing distribution of international river waters including construction of dams in high hazards seismic areas. In view of multiple river basins shared by two or more countries it has become imperative to formulate global river water distribution laws acceptable to upper and lower riparian, déjà vu, water fracas and frays might escalate to dismal water wars in forthcoming decades. Several water experts have pointed out Indian ingenuity based maneuvers to hoodwink lower riparian (Swain, 2001).
3. Breach of Indus Water Treaty
India and Pakistan used to share the River Indus and its five contributories Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej under British rule. The Pakistani areas had no dam to store water, therefore 80% of the water from six rivers would eventually fall into the Arabian Sea. When water conflicts started intensifying after the division of British India in 1948, the World Bank’s President Eugene Black acted in an arbitration procedure between Pakistan and India which resulted in 1960 in the Indus Water Treaty. Under this agreement three eastern rivers Ravi, Beas and Sutlej were given to India and three western rivers the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum were given to Pakistan. It was “water division” rather than ‘water sharing”.Pakistan also agreed to allow India to use some of western rivers’ waters for local agriculture around rivers in India and produce run-of-river style hydroelectricity provided tyhe water flow did not fall below 55,000 cusecs at Marala and other interface barrages that went below 20,000 in 2009. The Indus Water Treaty worked well up to the 1980s before the Indian Government decided to build dams in Shiwaliks (Himalchal, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir) on the western rivers (Jindal, 1990). Geotechnical studies were carried out in Ballowal, Takarla and Karoan areas from 1984 to 1995. Generally pre-monsoon, monsoon and post-monsoon rain fall in Kashmir valley (Handwara) used to be 305, 161.8 and 89mm from 1903 to 1982 (Kumar, 2010) which increased to 1117 to 1249mm in 1990s (Jindal, 1990) that prompted India to go for multiple dams on western rivers without seeking permission of lower river riparian.
Building dams on active faults in Zone-V (<7<Meq<9) was in violation of the Indus Water Treaty. The Indian Government conducted several more studies on geotechnical and hydrological parameters for the design of small earth filled dams in the 1990s (Sur, 1999). Initially, the small dams construction experience using local expertise led to micro-earthquakes around Thien Dam in Himalayas in 1980s ( Bhattacharya et al, 1986) which forced them to seek international assistance on dams. Feasibility studies on 400 MW Hasti Dul (400 MW) and other dams were carried out in Kashmir valley and the adjacent provinces of Himachal and Punjab in the 1990s (Winter et al, 1994). Uri-I (240 MW) dam on river Jhelum and Nathpa (1650 MW) dam on river Sutlej were carried out to test geological and geotechnical responses which hardly complied (Behrestaghi et al, 1996). If the Indian dams were to fail for technical reasons or as a result of earthquakes the people who would suffer would be Kashmiri or Pakistanis.
India has several dam projects including water diversion tunnels and canals. India had allocated RS.33 billion for the 330 MW Krishanganga project and Rs. 18 billion for the 240 MW Uri-II hydropower dam on River Jhelum, Rs.51 billion for 1000 MW Pak Dul and 1200 MW Sawalkot dams projects on Chenab. The Sawalkot dam is 646-feet height which is more than the 485-feet height Tarbela and 453 feet height Mangla in Pakistan. These dams are 160 km away from Kangra where a 8.0 Richter scale earthquake occurred in 1905 on record (Kiani, 2010).
India has already built 60 MW Madekheda dam on Indus river and is constructing 130 MW Chuttak, 600 MW Monpreet n Randeep, 44 MW Dumkhar and 60 MW Nimo Bazgo dams on river Indus. After completion of 330 MW Wular barrage and 240 MW Uri-I dam India is further constructing 330 MW Krishanganga and 240 MW Uri-II dams on the river Jhelum. India completed 450 MW Baglihar, 345 MW Salal-I and 345 MW Salal-II on river Chenab on which Pakistan objected seriously. India has diverted Jhelum river water to Chenab through a 80km long tunnel which is clear breach of Indus Water Treaty. India is constructing another 1200 MW Bursar dam on this tunnel. Instead of respecting Indus Water Treaty India has started construction of 400 MW Hasti Dul, 460 MW Rattle, 400 MW Gyspa, 100 MW Pakdul, 800 MW Karthai, 180 MW Raoli, 725 MW Seli, 1200 MW Sawalkot, 90 MW Tangat, 50 MW Pattan, 50 MW Teling, 100 MW Tandi, 180 MW Sach Khas, 300 MW Dueli/Dugli, 100 MW Rashal, 100 MW Myar, 190 MW Gondhala, 240 MW Dogar, 100 MW Shatru, 110 MW Dang, 20 MW Thai Rot and Chenai dams (Wikipedia, 2010; Arashad, 2010). After completion of so many dams all the western rivers will become dry. Bhutan has a hydropower potential of 23,000 MW out of which 4,484 MW is expected to be harnessed by constructing six dams by 2024. Pakistan has 50,000 MW hydro potential which is under threat due to 39,000 MW power Indian dams on western rivers. Pakistan is generating 71.9% thermal, 25.2% hydel and 2.9% nuclear power. Our energy mix consists of 43.5% oil, 41.5% gas, 0.3% LPG, 4.5% coal, 9.2% hydropower and 1.1% nuclear electricity (Nayyer, 2004). Pakistan has over 40,000 MW wind, 30,000 MW solar and 800 MW geothermal potential.
India has already contributed to the drying up of the eastern rivers Ravi, Sulej and Beas. Water only flows in these rivers when India has significant dam overflows. India is digging a Sulej-Ganges Link canal to divert waters to the southern Indian states on which Indian riparian have taken stay from the Indian court. India has built 390 MW Pong, 360 MW Pandoh and 126 MW Larji dams on river Beas, 1000 MW Bhakra, 1650 MW Nathpa and 800 MW Kol, 1000 MW Karcham Wang and 77 MW Nangal dams on river Sutlej, 1200 MW Baira Siul, 540 MW Chamera and 600 MW Ranjeet Agar, 120 MW Sewa-II and 70 MW Budhil dams on river Ravi. Indian dam mania is causing drought to both eastern and western riparian farmers. Pakistan has only two dams which usually stay partially filled throughout the year except monsoon months Wikipedia, 2010). Unfortunately, 95% Indian dams in Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir regions are located on dangerous earthquake faults zones. Recently India has launched another dams construction drive in Himachal Pardesh (En.Wikipedia, 2010) to build 300 MW Baspa, 231 MW Holi, 70 MW Dhamwar, 2050 MW Parbati, 192 MW Allian, 162 MW Swara, 370 MW Sham Not, 560 MW Rattle, 430 MW Kiru, 320 MW Kawar and 35 MW Bichlari dams (Ramanathan, 2007). United Nations water experts must formulate global water legislation to avoid water wars especially between India and Pakistan which may engulf many others. When Pakistan came to know of water shortages in rivers India had completed 70% of 48 dams. Indus river system is spread over 944,473 km2 out of which 553,416 km2 lies in Pakistan. Pakistan declared failure of Indus Commission in 2005 referring the case to neutral expert. India has 34 large dams out of which 10 are in Kashmir. Indian links between Neelum, Jhelum, Chenab through Tavi river uplift canal, Ravi, Beas, Sutlej and Yamana transfer western rivers water to Indian highlands as shown in Fig.1
There is no dam on Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej rivers on the Pakistani side. However, India is building over three dozens dams on Western rivers which are viewed as a matter of grave concern by Pakistan. Science news and global warming observations conclude that the Himalaya region will be affected in the near future. Dams worth 150,000 MW have been proposed in India, Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan. International Rivers point it out that these projects are environmentally determinental (ie from a global warming perspective). Melting glaciers, like Dig Tsho Glof in Nepal in 1985, may lead to glacial lake bursts causing flash floods. Bhutan noted 25 dangerous glacial lakes in 2009. Over one billion people rely on Himalaya waters. Upstream countries should not store waters in dams to starve lower riparian. India must focus on other sources of energy instead of blocking the flow of water to Pakistan. United Nations and Indian scientists and engineers must advise the Indian Government to curtail dam construction in fault zones on western rivers under 1960 Indus Treaty to discourage water war for long term regional security. We have long history of using waters amicably but energy crisis is driving the conflicts. Global irrigation potentials exists 68% in Asia, 17% in Americas, 9% in Europe and 1% in Oceania. Indus Basin western rivers contribute to 15-20% of Asian food cycle. Transboundary rivers are not local rather global assets which need due attention on merits. Indus water treaty went well for last 50 years but recent Indian dam drive is worsening the scenario.
Salaman’s (Salman, 2010) claim the lower riparian (Pakistan) can harm upper riparian (India) is not a valid argument as Pakistan and India have divided rivers instead of sharing them. Eastern rivers Sutlej, Beas and Ravi were chosen by India and Western rivers Indus, Jhelum and Chenab were left for Pakistan due to geographical locations. Eastern rivers had annual water capacity of 41 billion cubic meters (33 MAF) whereas western rivers had capacity of 188 billion cubic meters (135 MAF). Uri dams have storage capacity of 3.07 MAF in 1999 which increased to 6.37 MAF in 2002. Sutlej-Yamana (SYL) can transfer 3.5MAF water. India is transferring this water from western rivers into eastern rivers through Tavi-Ravi 31 meter high uplift link canal. India stopped Neelum River to divert water to Wular Barrage through 27 km long tunnel which is further diverted from Jhelum to Chenab through 77 km long tunnel. Asia Times called it race to death over Kashmir waters (Asia Times, 2009).
The Indus Waters Treaty 1960 Annexure D Part 2 (8, 9, 13, 15, 16 and 18) allows India to build even new run-of-river power plants without interfering with the water flow and diversion. The Indian decision to build large dams instead of run-of-river power stations is clear violation of above subsections. Part 2 section 15 restricts India to deliver volume of water varying from 30% to 130% of river water. India can divert water from one to other tributary of the same river but not the other rivers like Jhelum to Chenab and build 1200 MW dam on the tunnel. It must be run-of-river design not the dam capable holding waters for months. India has the right to stop water flow to Pakistan when dead storage of run-of-river powerhouse is being filled not several MAF dam which exceeds her permitted 3.6 MAF limit. Treaty section 18 (a, c) permit India to use 300 cusecs discharge turbines along with storage capacity 20 feet above mean bed level of tributary but the new 33 dams have been raised up to several tens of meters which contradicts the agreement. Part 4 (24) also allows India to build hydropower plants on any irrigation channel taking off western rivers without storage other than the poundage but is required under Part 5 (1-3) to supply location, hydrodynamic, design details such as spill ways, head tail etc to Pakistan 6 moths before starting construction work that has been covertly violated in last two decades. Indus Waters Treaty 1960 Annexure E related to water reservoir, dead, live, flood, surcharge, conservation and power storage capacities restricts India to values shown in Table 2.
Pakistan’s monsoon rains diminish; Indus River flood crest nears the coast
4. Water, Power and Energy Confluence
Population growth, industrial expansion and the consumer economy have increased electricity demand from 17PWh in 2000 to 20PWh in 2010. Demand is esitamted to increase to 24 PWH by 2020 and 30PWh by 2030. About 2.5 billion people out of global 6.8 billion population lived with severe water conditions in 2005 which are likely to increase to 3.95 billions out of 8.5 billions population by 2030. The IEEE believes trading water for watts is start of hard choices era. Hydroelectric, solar, nuclear and wind power plants consume 5.4, 2.5-2.8, 1.5 and 0 liters water per kWh but produce no carbon. Coal and gas fired power plants consume 1.1-1.8 and 0.5-1.8 liters per kWh energy producing 0.43 to 0.96 kg/kWh carbon. P hotovoltaic power generation uses 0.1 liter/kWh water producing 0.02 kg/kWh carbon. Wind power is the cleanest form energy which neither uses water nor produces carbon (IEEE Staff, 2010). Pakistan is among least coal burning countries but global warming is hitting hard on it since 1998. A recent temperature rise to 54°C in Mohenjo Daru followed by 1200,000 cusecs flash floods has affected over 2 to 2.5 million people across Pakistan. The climatologists say it makes no difference whether a single country increases or decreases greenhouse gases emissions at global scale. A country injecting thousands miles away can affect you through the common atmosphere. Recent industrialization in China and India has led to accumulation of green gases over Pakistan that has changed monsoon flow patterns from Bangladesh to India to Southern Punjab to northern mountains exacerbating glacier melting.
World power demand is 17 PWh whereas thousands of dams installed electric power capacity is 777 GWe that supplies just 2.9 PWh which is 18% of total demand. The remaining 82% demand is met with fossil fuels which are likely to be deplete after 2050. 5. Dams Hazards & Drawbacks
A large dam may fail during earthquake and flash flood. Dam failures may lead to serious consequences. It causes flash flood causing catastrophes. The Chinese Banqiao dam failure killed 26,000 by drowning in flood water and 145,000 people by subsequent epidemics in addition to billions dollars property losses. Vajont Dam failure by geological reasons killed 2000 people in Italy in 1963. Kelly Barnes Dam failed due to flash flood killing 27 people in 1957. It is very dangerous to construct dams on geological fault lines. Dam construction devastates lots of fertile land and causes the evacuation of rural populations. It is estimated that 50-80 million peoples have been displaced worldwide due to dam construction. 7. Concluding Remarks
Freshwater drives irrigation and industrial processes which support life. Even if natural freshwater does not decline significantly due to global warming, the pressure of growing population and industrial production are important factors to bear in mind in relaiton to the debate on “Peak Water”. (Peak water, 2010) To prevent water conflicts between nations, it is necessary to develop under international auspices, workable global laws which govern international rivers.
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Table 1 Historic floods induced losses in Pakistan
Table 2 Indus Water Treaty 1960 water allocations (IWT, 1960)
X* limited to 300 acre feet including agriculture and power use |
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The Indus Water Treaty Annexure E allows India to enjoy general, power and flood storage limits of 1.25, 1.60 and 0.75 MAF which is consistent with 3.6 MAF restriction of Part 2 section 15 as discussed above. Ground reality is the India has already build 14 power houses and working on the construction of another 33 medium size dams with storage capacities exceeding several tens of MAF instead of allowed 3.6 MAF. Pakistan used to get over 156 MAF earlier which despite fast snowmelts and monsoon runoff has reduced to just 134 MAF per year. Indus Waters Treaty 1960 Annex E (10) restricts India to not exceed storage beyond 10,000 acre feet above 3.6 MAF during even emergency and do not release it all of sudden to cause difficulty for Pakistan. Annexure E (18) restricts India to not let the water flow go bellow 55,000 cusecs it has been going bellow 20,000 in routine since many years.