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Archive for April, 2013

Pakistanis Speak Up For Your Rohingya Muslim Brothers & Sisters In Global Press: Our Heart Weep For You, Our Beloved Rohingyas of Myanmar

 

Rohingya Muslims and liberals

 | 24th July, 2012
 
 
 

MORE than 20,000 Muslims have been decimated and displaced by the extremist Buddhists in Myanmar. It is also one of the most appalling arsenals in recent times.

The world’s liberal conscience and human rights groups went vitriolic when the Taliban gutted down Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. No one can either defend what the Taliban did. But I want to ask a simple question from Pakistan’s so-called liberal and pro-western sections of society: where is there liberal conscience now?

The NGOs and private sector human rights organisations, which anchor themselves on European liberalism and financial grants, went berserk on the Kohistan girls killings which turned out to be a canard. When Muslims reacted violently, and wrongly,
against the caricatures published in liberal Scandinavia, and when Facebook was temporarily blocked, the liberals of Pakistan went out of their dens to tear apart the orthodox and fundamentalist elements.

I wonder why the liberals’ conscience remains sleeping when Muslims are subject to torture and genocide. Even Pakistan’s public and social media’s response is very lackadaisical.

RIZWAN AKHTAR
United Kingdom

Persecution

IT was painful to read the report, ‘Myanmar conflict spurs hatred for Asia’s outcasts’, by Todd Pitma (June 15). This is in the backdrop of recent ethnic clashes between the Rohingya Muslims and Burmese Buddhists after a mob lynched 10 Muslims in apparent retaliation for the rape and murder of a Buddhist woman, allegedly by Muslims.

Asia’s more than one million ethnic Rohingya Muslims are considered by rights groups to be among the most persecuted people on the earth. “In Burma they’re told they’re illegals who should go back to Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, they’re told they’re Burmese who should go back home.

They have been persecuted for decades, and it’s only getting worse,” according to Chris Lewa, a rights worker. Some say they are descended from 7th century Arab settlers and that their state was conquered by the Burmese in 1784.

Recently, Bangladeshi coast guards turned back many boatloads of terrified Rohingya refugees trying to flee the violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and even shot some of them.

Rohingya’s must get government permission to travel outside their own villages and even to marry. They are also barred from having more than two children.

In 1978, Myanmar’s army drove over 200,000 Rohingya’s into Bangladesh. Some 10,000 died in squalid conditions and the rest returned to Myanmar. The campaign was repeated in 1991-92, and again a majority returned.

In 2009, five boatloads of haggard Rohingya migrants fleeing Myanmar were intercepted by Thai authorities. They were reportedly detained and beaten, then forced back to sea, emaciated and bloodied, in vessels with no engines and little food or
water. Hundreds are believed to have drowned.

The same year, Myanmar’s consul general in Hong Kong — now a UN ambassador — described the Rohingyas as ‘ugly as ogres’ in an open letter to diplomats!

Obviously, there’s extreme hostility against these people. Besides other Asian countries, tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have made it to Pakistan. There’s Burma Colony in Karachi where a large number of them live peacefully. The UN and
OIC must take notice of the longstanding persecution of these unfortunate folks. The attention of our Myanmar friends is drawn to a wise teaching of Gautama Buddha. “Hatreds never cease by hate, but by love alone; this is an eternal truth.” To their UN
ambassador, the words of the Buddhist teacher Josei Toda may be instructive: “We don’t love others when we find them beautiful, we find others beautiful when we love them.”

K. CHAUDHRYUnknown-19
Karachi

UN and humanity

MORE than 20,000 Muslims have been killed in Myanmar by police, army and Buddhist extremists. Is this just and humanity?

Now I would like to ask the United Nations and human rights organisations, where are they? It is time the OIC took appropriate action to stop this violence and helped Muslims in Myanmar.

AZKA SHAFI
Karachi

Human rights

Rohingya people in Myanmar have been burnt in their villages and had to take refuge in the jungle. They have been turned away from where they might find sanctuary, while almost 90,000 have been forced out of their homes.The United Nations and humanitarian organisations must take notice of this bloodshed and the Security Council must probe into Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.

SHAHZAIB A. K. YUSUFZAI
Karachi

 
 

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Andy Rowell: Is Oil One Reason For Genocide of Rohingya in Burma? Global Muslim, Christian, & Jewish Communities Must Speak Up!

Is Oil One Reason For Genocide of Rohingya in Burma?

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Human rights campaigners are warning that further ethnic cleansing in Burma, which is being exacerbated by land clearances due to economic developments surrounding the Shwe Oil/Gas pipeline, could be imminent.

The Shwe pipeline, which ironically means Golden in Burmese, is due to open later this year. It will allow oil from the Gulf states and Africa to be pumped to China, bypassing a slower shipping route through the Strait of Malacca. It will also ship gas from off shore western Burma’s Arakan State, to southwest China.

Last year there were two massacres against the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim-minority population who inhabit Arakan state, including the strategic port of Sittwe, which is the start of the pipeline on the Burmese coast.  There are credible reports that the Burmese military is involved in the ethnic cleansing.

Banktrack has repeatedly called on international banks such as Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland to stop financing the pipeline or the companies involved in it, until the protection of community rights along the route could be guaranteed, but this has not happened.

 

 

 

 

Described by the UN as being amongst the most persecuted people in the world, the Rohingya have been described as the “world’s most forgotten people“. The massacres against them occurred in June and then again in October, with over 120000 now living as displaced people in camps in the state of Arakan, and many more having left for Bangladesh and further afield.

After the first massacre in June, Human Rights Watch argued that “Burmese security forces committed killings, rape, and mass arrests against Rohingya Muslims after failing to protect both them and Arakan Buddhists”. At the time, they estimated that “many of the over 100,000 people displaced and in dire need of food, shelter, and medical care.”

Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch said last year that “recent events in Arakan State demonstrate that state-sponsored persecution and discrimination persist.”

Events worsened last October when another massacre took place. Again Human Rights Watch argued that “attacks and arson” in late October “against Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Arakan State “were at times carried out with the support of state security forces and local government officials.”

Last week the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission warned that “We are extremely concerned about the increase in propaganda against the minority Rohingya in Burma.  It suggests that there is a high possibility of a third massacre against the Muslim minority”.

The Chair of IHRC, Massoud Shadjareh said, “There is a hidden genocide taking place in Burma, and we must speak out before even more of the Rohingya are murdered.  The international community need to come together and stop a third wave of violence taking place.”

Speaking to Oil Change International this morning, leading human rights campaigner Jamila Hanan, who is based in the UK and is founder of Save the Rohingya, said: “We are anticipating a third massacre of the Rohingya on the same scale which took place in Rwanda. We have been informed that this will take place sometime between now and mid-April.”

Hanan continued: ““There is a definite link between the oil development and the elimination of the Rohingya. The Rohingya are being cleared out of Sittwe which is being developed as a deep sea port to take oil tankers from the Middle East. There is huge number of economic developments around the port of Sittwe as a result of the new pipeline.”

The strategic port of Sittwe, where many Rohingya are based, and where the pipeline starts, is just one factor. Another are lucrative oil blocks which have previously been off limits due to sanctions. Next month, Burma plans to launch a much anticipated bidding for 30 offshore oil and gas blocks April, which is likely to receive bids from oil majors such as Chevron, Total and ConocoPhillips, amongst others.

“Our politicians must put their own economic interests aside and act urgently to prevent this imminent human disaster, “says Hanan. “Never before has the public been so informed through social media that a massacre was about to happen – our governments must not be allowed to sit back and do nothing.”

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JF-17 armed with hypersonic anti-ship, “Aircraft-Carrier Killer,” CM-400AKG missile

JF-17 armed with hypersonic anti-ship CM-400AKG missile
April 3, 2013

Air Commodore Mahmood Khalid said “The CM-400AKG is a very high-speed missile that is very tough to intercept. It hits the target at Mach 4 or above and its kinetic impact alone is enough to destroy any high-value target, like an aircraft carrier.”

The missile has an estimated range of 180-250 Km. It is a fire and forget 400 kg solid-rocket-powered weapon that can be fitted with different seekers and warheads. The missile’s impact velocity is greater than Mach 5.

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COWARD OF KARGIL NAWAZ SHARIF: Kargil War was a victory for Pakistan

Kargil was a big success for Pakistan: Musharraf

Nawaz Sharif is mainly responsible for spreading the rumour, that FCNA was losing at Kargil. He keeps harping the same tune, even, though some Indian generals have reluctantly accepted it as a defeat of Indian Army. But, this coward leaves no opportunity to bad mouth Kargil victory.  Nawaz Sharif is an enemy of Pakistan. He puts his own interests above national interests. He felt threatened by Pakistan Army’s spectacular victory in Kargil War.

Cowardly, Kashmiri turncoat Nawaz Sharif was shocked by success of Pakistan;s Mujahedin of FCNA, who caused 3000 Indian Army Casualties, including the loss of two planes, death of one IAF Pilot and capture of Indian Pilot Lt.Nachikita by Pak Army. Being a US CIA Agent Nwaz was afraid that Musharraf and the Army would get all the glory, he ran to his patron President Clinton.

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Islamabad: Claiming that his 1999 Kargil operation was a “big success militarily”, former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has said that if the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif had not visited the US, the Pakistani Army would have “conquered” 300 square miles of India. 

He defended his action to launch the operation in Kargil in the wake of fresh allegations that he masterminded the intrusions. 

Referring to Lt Gen (retired) Shahid Aziz’s allegations that he had kept other military commanders in the dark about the operation, Musharraf said, “Telling everyone about it was not necessary at all”. 

He claimed Aziz had an “imbalanced personality” and had resorted to character assassination by making these accusations. 

 

“We lost the Kargil war, which was a big success militarily, because of (then premier) Nawaz Sharif…If he had not visited the US, we would have conquered 300 square miles of India,” Musharraf said in an interview with Express News channel. 

Though Pakistan had initially claimed mujahideen were responsible for occupying strategic heights along the Line of Control in early 1999, Musharraf later revealed in his autobiography ‘In The Line Of Fire’ that regular Army troops had participated in the operation. 

But Musharraf claimed the action in Kargil was a “localised” operation and not a major operation. 

“Kargil was just one of many sectors under a Major General stationed in Gilgit, (who was) in charge of the area. Exchange of fire was routine there,” he claimed. Musharraf said he would not go so far as to accuse former premier Nawaz Sharif of betrayal but his decision to withdraw from Kargil was a mistake. 

 

Unknown-2“Nawaz lost a political front which we had won militarily,” he claimed. 

The former general, who has been living in self-exile outside Pakistan since 2009, said the “prime consideration” for actions like the Kargil operation is security and secrecy. 

“So the Army leadership decides who is to be informed and when. As the operation progressed and the proper time arrived, a briefing of the corps commanders was held,” he said. 

Musharraf said he was “really astonished” that Aziz was writing about the events 10 years later. 

Blaming the nation at this juncture, as Aziz had done, seems to be “part of a conspiracy”, he claimed. 

“It was a tactical action that had a strategic importance in which no more than a few hundred persons were involved, but which engaged thousands on the Indian side and was of tremendous importance,” he claimed. 

Musharraf justified Pakistani casualties in the conflict, claiming the country lost only 270 men against India’s 1,600 soldiers. 

 
Courtesy
Press Trust of India
INDIAN VIEWPOINT: NEVER CALL A DEFEAT, A DEFEAT

Eyeball to eyeball   July 1999

India has to mask its initial intelligence failure by regaining the peaks regardless of heavy casualties. Both sides need a face-saving way out. Since early May there has been a see-saw military, political and diplomatic struggle between the two Subcontinental protagonists, Pakistan and India. Islamabad’s position has been that the guerrillas who have captured the heights overlooking the Drass-Kargil-Leh road, are Kashmiri freedom fighters struggling for their long-denied right of self-determination. 
 
 

India eventually decided, after examining the pros and cons of widening the conflict across the Line of Control (LoC) or even across the international border, on a strategy of containment within the narrower objective of regaining the Kargil heights. This narrower framework meant higher casualties on the Indian side because of the difficulty of traversing slopes against dug-in defenders where the terrain offers no cover.

New Delhi calculated that it does have the political will and military morale, despite the heavy casualties, and can sustain the cost in human and material terms. A near-consensus domestically and the willingness of the Indian military command to accept constraints allowed India to continue with an operation in which it suffered disproportionately heavy casualties.

With regard to Pakistan, the intriguing question is whether the Kargil heights seizure was part of the normal stepping up of guerrilla activity during summer, or whether it had more ambitious objectives. If it were the former, little can be added, except to mention in passing a failure of Indian intelligence. The guerrillas’ presence was only discovered by accident when two Indian army patrols happened to spot them. The true extent of the guerrilla presence did not sink in until the Indian army had carried out an aerial survey of the area, which revealed that between 400 to 700 guerrillas had seized the heights. This could have put them in a position in any future war to threaten the sole overland logistics link with the Indian forces deployed in Siachen, i.e. the Srinagar-Drass-Kargil-Leh road.

But the Kargil seizure could have other strategic objectives with military, political and diplomatic dimensions. Militarily, if the seizure could be maintained for a reasonable period of time and at least until winter sets in, it could open up possibilities of forcing either an Indian withdrawal from Siachen, or a trade-off between the Kargil heights and the Siachen Glacier.

Politically, it could reflect the impatience in Islamabad with lack of progress in bilateral discussions on Kashmir under the Lahore Declaration process after the fall of the BJP government in end-April. Despite the fact that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of India heads a caretaker government until elections are held in September-October, the hope may have been to force New Delhi back to the negotiating table in a serious mode. Diplomatically, since the bilateral process had not yielded results, an internationalisa-tion of the Kashmir issue may have been sought to bring it back onto the frontburner.

If we assume for the sake of argument that all or some of these objectives formed part of the Pakistani thrust into Kargil, or at least were taken on board once things hotted up on the Line of Control, we can examine the results achieved or likely to be achieved in the foreseeable future and then draw up a balance sheet of gains and losses.

Missing Kashmir for Kargil

Militarily, the inherent difficulty of holding on to the Kargil heights in the face of overwhelming firepower and numbers has become a key question as the battle drags on. India has weighed the costs of heavy casualties against the bigger costs of potentially adverse international intervention if the conflict is widened. It has relied on the political consensus to hold on to Kashmir no matter what the cost, which informs its domestic political spectrum (the weak and scattered chinks of rationality represented by liberal opinion notwithstanding). India’s slow but definite gains against the guerrillas have produced collateral pressures for a withdrawal of the guerrillas from what is turning into a suicidal mission.

The political timing of the Kargil seizure, if the idea was indeed to force New Delhi back to serious negotiations, could not have been worse. A caretaker government heading into an election was hardly likely to be in a position to negotiate, let alone offer any flexibility or concession on such a major issue. There has been speculation in the Indian press after the visit to Pakistan by the US emissary General Anthony Zinni regarding proposals purportedly from Islamabad for India to allow safe passage to the guerrillas, quoting the precedent of the Hazrat Bal shrine siege. Whether these reports hold any water or not is not known.

However, Western diplomatic pressure on Islamabad is mounting, especially after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Washington DC and London, and these could take various forms, economic, political, diplomatic. The dependence of the Pakistani economy on the goodwill of the West, and particularly the US, to keep foreign fund flows going makes Pakistan that much more vulnerable to ‘persuasion’.

It goes without saying that such ‘persuasion’ seeks to maintain the status quo on Kashmir, while advocating peaceful negotiations. Pakistan’s experience indicates that retaining the status quo has always proved favourable to India. Any disturbance of New Delhi’s hold on Kashmir, even if partial or temporary, serves to refocus the attention of the global community on a long-neglected, festering wound. But in trying to disturb the status quo in its favour, the manner in which Pakistan pursues this tactical goal is crucial. This cannot happen by ignoring the ground reality.

The Pakistani army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, put his finger on the problem by describing Kargil as “a tactical, military issue”, while Kashmir as such was “a strategic, political” one. In other words, to see only the Kargil part of the picture represented by the Kashmir problem, is to miss the forest for the trees. However, in the present instance, Islamabad appears to have failed to persuade the global powers-that-be of the justness of this linkage. On the contrary, opinion seems to have hardened in the West that the status quo must be restored before diplomatic “business as usual” can be resumed.

Most thinking people in Pakistan are by now convinced that there is no (regular) military option to obtain a solution to Kashmir, particularly after both India and Pakistan have demonstrated their nuclear capability. The irregular military option (guerrilla war) faces considerable political and ideological disabilities, especially since the Kashmir guerrilla movement has acquired a fundamentalist hue over time. This does not appear to be sufficiently inspiring for large numbers of the Kashmiri people who are well known for their traditional religious tolerance. This despite continuing repression by the Indian military in Kashmir.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been castigated by the right-wing, religious, fundamentalist opinion for stating an obvious truth that without both India and Pakistan going beyond their “stated positions”, no solution to the Kashmir problem is possible. The hue and cry against him for saying that, particularly in the Urdu press, reflects the limitations which restrict the country’s political leadership. No flexibility, political or diplomatic, is allowed to any Pakistani leader to even explore some middle ground. Any such suggestion is treated as treason, betrayal, the worst kind of skullduggery. For such ideologically ‘pure’ elements, it is either all or nothing as far as Kashmir is concerned.

Before it is too late, sober heads must begin to ponder how much cloth we have remaining and how to cut it. Passion cannot replace cool calculation required for a strategic plan for peace. The Pakistani leadership must take into account a heavily dependent economic structure, an inability to rouse the world’s conscience beyond rhetoric, and the lack of a solid consensus across the

domestic political divide. The risk is that any attempt to work out a strategy based on the art of the possible would fall foul of Pakistan’s ideological hawks.

 

 
 

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Hamid Maker: Straight Talk – Of Broken Promises and Shattered Dreams

For the last six decades, Pakistan has been traveling down the River Of No Return, without a paddle or a rudder, heading for the Niagara Falls and the rocks Unknown-15 

Therefore, if we want to save Pakistan, we will have to take ownership of our country and step into the world of hunger, squalor, disease, despair and death and share their grief and sorrow and try to fulfill their broken promises. If we fail to establish a just and honest system of governance, then neither the drones, nor the mightiest army nor our nukes will stop the March of the Taliban.

 

And to achieve this, we need an honest and sincere leader and a government that is free from corruption and dishonest parlimantarians. And this can only be achieved if the corrupt parliamentarians are disqualified by ECP and prevented from participating in the coming election.

 

Unfortunately, Fakhru Bhai and his four-member team are being put under tremendous pressure from those in government, who are trying to sabotage the workings of ECP, by accusing its shameless members of ‘witch hunting’ and defaming the politicians. But then, as the late Ardeshir Cowasgee, God bless his soul, had asked,‘How do you shame the shameless’?

 

As such, if we wish to save Pakistan, we, who have the most to lose, must stand up and be counted and come to the aid of the Election Commission of Pakistan. In this connection, Citizens For Fair Election are organizing a series of peaceful demonstrations in front of the ECP office, (opposite the passport office in Saddar), on Monday 25th at 12pm and request all citizens to participate in the demonstrations.

 

And if we fail to do so, then as Shakespeare had written: ‘The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings’ and the bells that tool, will be for us.

Hamid Maker. (Email: [email protected]).

 

 

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