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[fatman17]

Amnesty International’s Propaganda against Pakistan


By Global Research News

Global Research, January 13, 2013

Frontier Post

Region: AsiaTheme: Media Disinformation

by Abdullah Mansoor


Human rights watchdog, Amnesty International (AI), in its new report titled “The Hands of Cruelty – Abuses by Armed Forces and Taliban in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas” claimed that millions of people in Pakistan’s north-western tribal areas were locked in perpetual lawlessness where human rights were allegedly violated by Pakistan armed forces.

A diminutive portion of the report also blamed the Taliban and other armed militant groups for killing thousands of civilians in indiscriminate attacks. The report was based on more than 100 testimonies from victims of human rights violations in detention, witnesses, relatives, lawyers, representatives of Pakistani authorities and armed groups.

Pakistan military and foreign ministry spokespersons rejected the report as a biased document and termed it as a part of sinister propaganda campaign against Pakistan and its armed forces.

A first glance at the report gives an impression that both the Pakistan Army and the Taliban are violating human rights in the tribal areas. However, its critical analysis reveals that the report is a sequel of international hostile elements’ propaganda against Pakistan’s security institutions, which is launched with the sole aim to malign Pakistani security forces and discredit military operations in the tribal areas.

To serve this malicious purpose, exaggerated stories of individuals victimized by armed forces are blown out of proportion to validate the propaganda claim. A deep insight into the report also reflects that militants’ inhuman activities are inappropriately discussed, whereas criticism against them is deliberately incorporated in the report to increase its authenticity and project it as an unbiased investigation. The report overlooks accounts of various inhabitants of tribal areas, who opposed terrorists’ radical beliefs and consequently experienced their cruelty. Thus, the report can be termed as biased and one-sided.

Such a misinformation against Pakistan Army is not something new, as ever since the advent of war on terror in Afghan-Pak region, Pakistan is being fallaciously maligned for allegedly providing sanctuaries to terrorists, being involved in extra judicial killings in KPK and FATA or forced disappearances in Balochistan. But, in reality, Pakistan Army is fighting for the survival of Pakistan and protecting its people from hostile elements in tribal areas, while its personnel are sacrificing their lives for the global cause of eradicating terrorism and extremism from this region. Yet ironically, both sides of the picture are never shown by such so-called human rights organizations that are working in accordance with their nefarious objective of undermining Pakistan’s efforts in war on terror.

Amnesty International claims that it is an internationally recognized human rights organization and independent of any government, political ideology, economic interests or religion, has proved categorically false. A well-reputed geopolitical researcher, Tony Cartalucci writes in his article on infowars.com that “AI is in fact one of the greatest obstacles to real human rights advocacy on earth. Its funds are not only run by governments, but the organization is also entwined with political ideology and economic interests. UK Department for International Development continued to fund a four-year human rights education project of AI in Africa, while the European Commission also awarded it with a multi-year grant for education work in Europe.

Amnesty’s leadership also tells its true agenda; Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director of AI’s USA chapter, was drawn directly from the US State Department, which utterly contradicts Amnesty’s claims of being “independent” of governments’ interests. Nossel also promotes US foreign policy regarding Iran, Syria and Libya behind AI’s logo.

A glance at AmnestyUSA.org also reveals that at each and every front the US State Department is currently working on and has prioritized, is also coincidentally being prioritized by AI.”

Ordinary people are given the false impression that “someone is watching out” for human rights abuses, but in reality, AI is managing public perception of selective global human rights abuses, fabricating and/or manipulating many cases specifically to suit its agenda. For instance, Pakistan Army is in no comparison with the human rights violations by the US military in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghareb and Bagram Jails, yet their plight is seldom highlighted at the international level. The US, a major proponent of human rights in the world, carried out heinous crimes and massive human rights violations in Iraq and Afghanistan, where thousands of innocent civilians were killed in unprovoked air strikes.

Organizations like AI must raise voice for the detainees of Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan prisons, who have complained of enduring beatings, sleep deprivation, prolonged constraints in uncomfortable positions, prolonged hooding, and other physical and psychological mistreatment by the US forces. Moreover, it is imperative that all human rights organizations advocate transparency and project both sides of the picture without singling out a particular group, faction or country so that people may become able to distinguish between illusion and reality.

 

[airomerix]

Corp Commander of Lahore has been changed.

Source: Corp Commander Lahore

 

[Jango]

Corp Commander of Lahore has been changed.

Source: Corp Commander Lahore

Lt Gen Rashid Mahmood?

Any idea who is the new one? And where has Lt Gen Rashid been posted to?

 

[DV RULES]

Lt Gen Rashid Mahmood?

Any idea who is the new one? And where has Lt Gen Rashid been posted to?

Lt. General Maqsood Ahmad (Lahore)

Lt General Rashid (Chief of general staff GHQ)

http://urdu.geo.tv/UrduDetail.aspx?ID=84306

 

[Jango]

So he gets the post of CGS, interesting.

 

[Gentelman]

Islamabad: Lt General Rashad Mahmood
has been appointed as the Chief of
General Staff (CGS) in a major reshuffle in
the Pakistan Army at the general
headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi.
Lt Gen Rashad, who currently serves as
Corps Commander Lahore, will replace Lt
Gen Waheed Arshad, who retires on
Sunday.
The CGS is the senior most position in the
army following the post of the Chief of
Army Staff (COAS), the Express Tribune
reports.
According to the report, it is among the
most important and coveted positions
within the military, since the CGS is the
institution’s operations and intelligence
head.
Other key appointments approved by
COAS General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani
include the Chief of Logistics at GHQ and
the corps commanders of Lahore and
Bahawalpur.
According to Inter-Services Public
Relations (ISPR), Lt General Muhammad
Haroon Aslam, currently Corps
Commander Bahawalpur, has been posted
as Chief of Logistics at GHQ.
Newly promoted Lt General Zubair
Mahamood Hayat and Lt General
Maqsood Ahmed have been posted the
corps commanders of Bahawalpur and
Lahore respectively, the report said.
Talking to The Express Tribune, a military
official said a reshuffle in the army’s top
ranks was overdue given Lt Gen
Waheed’s retirement, the report added.

 

[UmarJustice]

Pak army holds medical camps in Sindh

BADIN: Pakistan Army set up free medical camps in different areas of Badin and Mithi and examined more than 4000 patients.



In Shadi Large village of Badin district, specialist doctors of Pak Army examined more than 1500 patients of different diseases and gave them medicines. On the occasion, measles vaccine was given to more than 1000 children.



Other medical camps were held at Tando Bago, Deplo, Khokhrapar, Dhoro Naro, Chhore and other areas. Villagers of these areas greeted holding of free medical camps.

Pak army holds medical camps in Sindh - thenews.com.pk

 

[Windjammer]

 

[fatman17]

23rd March parade

MAJOR (retd) TALAAT KHURSHID


Rawalpindi - I was born in Rawalpindi and since my childhood, I have been regularly witnessing the 23rd March parade either physically or on the TV. Incidentally, my date of commission is also 23rd March, 1968. I have also had the honour of performing security duties at the parade venue at Race Course, Rawalpindi. What a morale boosting event it used to be! I would also take my children, like thousands others, to witness the fly past, the parade, the roar of tanks, the wish-wooshing helicopters and the floats of all the provinces binding us together in unison.

President General Pervez Musharraf, a commando, chickened out because of threats on his life or other flimsy pretexts and discontinued the holding of the parade. Gradually, we saw the staff cars, trucks and buses of the armed forces losing their distinction when they started displaying civil numbers. The guardians started guarding themselves by manning routes frequented by senior officers, brandishing guns pointed at the civilian public moving around with oblivion.

General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, the public expected of you to bring the army ‘’back to life and in full visibility’’ of the general public rather than having a false sense of security by carrying out ‘’fortress defences’’ around offices and residential accommodations throughout Pakistan. In spite of the day in and day out and very tiring and demoralising security duties, your GHQ, Mehran Naval Base, Abbottabad raid, PAF Base, Kamra, and Peshawar airport/PAF Base, Peshawar got viciously attacked resulting in great loss of life and valuable equipment.

The Hazara community was very right in asking as to what, you as a Chief of Army Staff, had given back to the nation in spite of getting one full extra tenure at ‘gun point’.

You, as an individual, and your condescending generals, may be glorifying the fact that you, along with Nawaz Sharif, managed the continuation of democracy, but at what cost? Just ask the public. You, and the other services chiefs, opted to ‘accept’ and ‘salute’ the most corrupt and an utterly coward supreme commander of our armed forces who did not have the courage to visit the headquarters of the three services, what to talk of the operational areas.

This is your last year of service. You may have done a lot for the army as a whole but then you are answerable to the nation as well which sustains the perks and privileges of the armed forces through their taxes. It would not be out of place to expect of you to order the holding of the 23rd March parade this year. Would our coward, bunkered supreme commander have the guts to take the salute on an open dais at the parade venue? It is worthwhile to mention here that, as compared to the 23rd March parade, the holding of a non-participatory ‘Yaum-e-Shuhada’ carries less sentimental value for the general public other than for those families whose kith and kin got shaheed. It is pertinent to point out here that it was in your tenure that massive flood relief activities were ‘blacked out’ just because the political government started feeling the heat due to their inaction. Lately, the burial of shuhada, who laid their lives in various operations is also not given due importance by the army.

In view of the above, it is fervently hoped that the lost dignity of the army in particular and the remaining services in general, would be restored by you before you hand over your baton to the next chief. Holding of 23rd March parade is a national event and must be held come what may.

old school officer

 

[Jango]

There was a plan to hold the parade last year or the year before, but got cancelled due to some reasons...

PA really doesn't want to take a risk...it sure was a spectacle, military equipment and marching soldiers on Constitution avenue!

 

[fatman17]

Pakistan offers Malaysia industrial support, help for medical team in Afghanistan.

Author:
Dzirhan Mahadzir, Kuala Lumpur

Last posted:
2013-02-01

Pakistan has offered to help Malaysia with its Afghanistan mission and the development of Malaysia's defence industry, Malaysia's defence minister said in Kuala Lumpur on 29 January.

Speaking to reporters during the visit of Pakistan's Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, General Khalid Shameem Wynne, Defence Minister Dato' Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that Pakistan had offered logistics support for the relocation of Malaysia's medical team from its current location in Bamyan province to a yet-to-be-determined location in Kabul.

The medical team, which is operating as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and mandated to October 2014, has to relocate to Kabul by April 2013 due to the scheduled withdrawal of the New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team stationed there. Zahid Hamidi said that he also discussed the possibility of co-operation in Afghanistan with Pakistan after the withdrawal of NATO forces in 2014, should Malaysia decide to remain beyond its mandate.

Concerning defence industry co-operation, Zahid Hamidi said Pakistan had offered assistance to Malaysia in developing a medium- to long-range unmanned aerial vehicle and co-operation on specific military equipment. While he declined to elaborate, Malaysia currently operates the Pakistani Baktar Shikan anti-tank guided weapon and ANZA Mk II man-portable air-defence system.

Potential industrial co-operation may be related to both.

IHSJ

 

[Gentelman]

ISPR Update
No PR16/2013-ISPR Dated: February 2,
2013
A spokesman of ISPR has termed the
Human Rights Watch (HRW) recent report a
pack of lies, propaganda driven and totally
biased. He said it is yet another attempt to
malign Pakistan and its institutions through
fabricated and unverified reports,
Completely favouring an anti Pakistan
agenda. The HRW has based its opinion on
imprecise facts and biased views.
The HRW report seems to be a clear
attempt to further fuel already ongoing
scectarian violence and to create chaos and
disorder in Pakistan. HRW has no
credibility and has been criticized world
wide for raising controversies through its
biased reports and funding from certain
quarters and its reports have been
rejected by many countries of the world.

 

[fatman17]

Monday, February 04, 2013

Army battles legacy of mistrust in South Waziristan


CHAGMALAI: In a Pakistan army base high in the mountains on the Afghan frontier, a general explains a strategy for fighting the Taliban he calls simply “WHAM”.

The name has a distinctly bellicose ring. But the soldiers are learning to fight a new kind of war in a region US President Barack Obama has called the most dangerous on Earth.

“WHAM - winning hearts and minds,” explains the straight-talking General Nazir Butt, in charge of converting the army’s gains on the battlefield into durable security. “The plan is to turn militant sanctuaries into safe havens for the people.”

The term WHAM has been used before, but the focus this time is South Waziristan, an enclave on the Afghan border once the epicenter of a spreading Taliban insurgency that shocked the country with its challenge to the authority of the nuclear-armed state.

According to the army narrative, the campaign includes winning over the region’s ethnic Pashtun tribes through dialogue, creating commercial opportunities and providing education in new schools and colleges.

During a three-day trip with the army, Reuters got a rare glimpse not just into the scale of the army’s state-building project in South Waziristan, but also the challenges that lurk in the inhospitable territory.

However well-meaning the new approach, there are problems that won’t go away - threats of retaliation by the al Qaeda-linked militants, a lack of effective civilian administration and endemic corruption.

And the campaign to win hearts and minds has an ignoble track record in other conflict zones which serve as a reality check for even the most optimistic Pakistani officials.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, Western nations poured in millions of dollars to rebuild militant strongholds and win affection. Results have been limited: many residents view the armies as occupiers and militants remain a danger.

The goal won’t be any easier in South Waziristan. Government-appointed political agents rule through the Pashtun tribes.

While the Pakistani army backed the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and supported militants fighting Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region, in South Waziristan it found itself under attack. Decades of resentment felt by the population and the US bombing campaign on the Afghan border following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States spawned a generation of Pakistani militants who used South Waziristan to launch assaults against the Pakistani state and US-led forces in Afghanistan.

Unsure how to respond, Pakistan see-sawed between brief military campaigns and appeasing the militants with short-lived peace deals. Then, in 2009, Pakistan’s army chief ordered the biggest offensive yet, pouring 40,000 troops into South Waziristan in a bid to tip the balance. The 2009 offensive displaced almost half a million people.

Today, a combination of the offensive and US drones has helped drive the Pakistan Taliban leadership out of South Waziristan and the army is looking for ways to convince people it is safe for them to return.

But after having spent close to three years in camps, only 41,000 refugees have come back.

“The people can only feel fully secure if there is social and economic uplift,” said a brigadier who commands a cliff-side compound near Wana, the main town in South Waziristan. “It took some time but we know now that 1,000 bullets can’t do the work of one school.”

Many of the refugees have resettled in Chagmalai, a village close to Jandola, where the army is headquartered in a fort built by the British in the nineteenth century - a reminder of a centuries-old policy of ruling the area through a mix of intimidation and armed intervention.

A small, colourful marketplace was inaugurated last year and the green-and-white Pakistani flag was painted on the shutters of shops given to traders for a nominal fee. In a courtyard next door, army officers and government officials teach people how to raise poultry and set up bee farms.

But despite the development, Chagmalai still resembles a ghost town, a collection of ruined houses and abandoned clinics and schools with falling plaster and bullet-pocked walls. The army says it wants to turn the secluded landscape into a new home for those who have found the courage to return.

Ashraf Khan is a recently widowed farmer who has just returned from the Jandola fort where he asked the commanding officer for a loan.

“My wife used to gather firewood and collect water,” he said. “Now I need to buy a donkey. I’m hoping the soldiers will keep their promise to help.”

A few kilometres away, construction workers and army engineers have dug through rugged terrain to build a road, which will connect the isolated region with the northwest city of Peshawar, the nearest economic hub. The US government has contributed $170 million for the 287-km road.

Agricultural land and poultry farms line the sides of the highway, which zips through a breathtaking chasm of mountains and cliffs, its dual-lanes in better shape than many of those in Pakistani cities. “The road has made it so much easier to move flocks, feed and medicines,” said Hamid Jan who runs a poultry farm. “I’ve never earned this much money before.”

The army believes it can create goodwill by encouraging commerce and, more importantly, education. Officers say 33 schools have been restored and 4,000 students enrolled, 200 of them girls, but verifying such data is difficult.

The Taliban oppose girls’ education and in October shot a 15-year-old Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai, for advocating schooling for girls.

But the army says it will power on. Having previously served in the disputed border region between Pakistan and India, Colonel Asim Iqbal now shows off a flagship technical institute and cadet college built as part of the WHAM initiative.

Seventy-five students graduated from the Rs 11 million Waziristan Institute of Technical Education in December with diplomas in auto-mechanics, carpentry and IT. Nearby, a cadet college has been built at a cost of Rs 50 million.

In the college computer lab, Shamsullah, 15, learnt word-processing. A poor teenager whose uncle was a militant commander killed in a US drone strike, Shamsullah could have been a ready Taliban recruit. Instead, he just wants to study.

“I have nothing to do with militancy,” he said. “Ask me about my books.”

But for all the high hopes, enthusiastic students, freshly plastered classrooms and tarmac roads, there is little sign of a credible civilian administration taking root.

The highest political officer in the area, the political agent, does not even live in South Waziristan out of fear of being killed by the Taliban, who have murdered hundreds of leaders in the tribal belt in recent years.

Pashtun elders said official records showed that school teachers absent for months were still drawing salaries while the administration took no action.

But political agent Shahidullah Khan said he was doing the best he could. “There is only so much I can do when I can’t even travel outside the army camp,” he said by phone from Tank, a town to the east of South Waziristan. Only on Saturday, more than 30 people were killed in an attack on a military checkpost next to South Waziristan which the Taliban said was revenge for a drone strike that killed two commanders in North Waziristan last month.

Many of the boys playing cricket close to the market declined to answer when asked about army assurances of a better life. But referring to militants and the military, one said: “They’re all the same.”

Some army officers accept such criticism as valid, admitting to the state’s decades-old heavy-handedness in the region. “The budget for my brigade alone could take care of the education of all of South Waziristan,” said General Butt. “We have made many mistakes. And we don’t deny it any more.” But while Butt insists that the militants are no longer a force to be reckoned with in South Waziristan, many people are less optimistic.

“The army has blocked them for now but the Taliban can return,” said a shop keeper.

A tribal elder whose family has moved away and is too afraid to return, asked: “If the Taliban are really gone for good, why doesn’t the army also leave?” reuters

 

[Gentelman]

Pakistan Successfully
Test Fires Surface to
Surface Missile Hatf IX
February 12, 2013

Pakistan conducted a successful test fire
of Short Range Surface to Surface Missile
Hatf IX (NASR). The test fire was
conducted with successive launches of
two missiles from a state of the art multi
tube launcher. NASR, with a range of 60
km, and inflight maneuver capability can
carry nuclear warheads of appropriate
yield, with high accuracy. This quick
response system, which can fire a four
Missile Salvo ensures deterrence against
threats in view of evolving scenarios.
Additionally NASR has been specially
designed to defeat all known Anti Tactical
Missile Defence Systems.
The test was witnessed by Chairman Joint
Chiefs of Staff Committee General Khalid
Shameem Wynne, Director General
Strategic Plans Division Lieutenant
General (Retired) Khalid Ahmed Kidwai,
Chairman NESCOM Mr Muhammad Irfan
Burney, Commander Army Strategic
Forces Command Lieutenant General Triq
Nadeem Gilani, senior officers from the
armed forces and scientists and engineers
of strategic organizations.
Addressing the scientists, engineers and
military officers of Strategic Organizations,
Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee
congratulated them on displaying a high
standard of proficiency in handling and
operating the state of the art weapon
system. He said that Pakistan’s Armed
Forces were fully capable of safeguarding
Pakistan’s security against all kinds of
aggression.
The successful test has also been
appreciated by the President and Prime
Minister of Pakistan who have
congratulated the scientists and engineers
on their outstanding success.

 

[Safriz]

A file photo of army personnel. PHOTO: REUTERS
ISLAMABAD:
The Pakistan Army plans to raise a new force to deal with the threat of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), which have claimed over 11,000 lives in the last decade in Pakistan.
IEDs have also been a major cause of fatalities among foreign forces stationed in neighbouring Afghanistan.
An inter-agency meeting, held at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi on Monday, was informed that a new force of three Counter IED units was being raised within the Pakistan Army, according to an official statement.
The meeting, chaired by Chief of General Staff Lt General Rashad Mahmood, was part of efforts by the government to deal with the threat of IEDs.
Representatives of the ministry of foreign affairs, Pakistan Agricultural Research Council, minister of industries, ministry of information and broadcasting, ministry of interior, Fata Secretariat, Pak-Arab Fertilizers, Biafo Industries Limited, and the Wah Nobel Group attended the meeting.
According to the Inter-Services Public Relations, the panel reviewed challenges and threats posed by IEDs in the present environment and identified them as the “cheapest assassins”.
The officials and experts acknowledged that while the menace has been growing overall, the number of IEDs has been successfully reduced in conflict zones from 55% to 45% in the last couple of years.
The panel noted that a number of other countries affected by IEDs have made laws to control the menace but Pakistan has yet to enacted any progress on this plane.

Related issues such as border control, tracking down terrorist networks and random checks in Fata were also discussed.
A regulatory mechanism was discussed in detail for the effective control of the movement of the explosive material and Calcium Ammonium Nitrate (CAN) fertiliser from regional and extra-regional countries.
Pakistan has often been accused by western countries of doing little to stop the smuggling of CAN. According to the US, about 80% of the IEDs used in Afghanistan contain homemade explosives, and more than 80% of them are derived from the CAN fertiliser, which is produced in Pakistan.
The statement added that Pakistan is one of the top victims of IED attacks by militants. During the last decade, some 33,150 incidents have taken place across Pakistan, claiming the lives of 11,250 Pakistanis and injuring over 21,000.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 12th, 2013.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/506074/cheapest-assassins-army-creates-new-units-to-combat-ied-threat/