notsuperstitious
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Yes Ajmal Kasab is our brand ambassador.
US think tank: India not aiding Baloch militants
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Yes Ajmal Kasab is our brand ambassador.
Ratus Ratus
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Since it appears most have not tempted beyond the pathetic news media trivial article below I have listed the 12 recommendations from this report.
Report: Pakistan The State of The Union
Conclusions and Recommendations
To The United States
1.Support Civilian Governance
An enduring political accommodation between the central government and the ethnic minorities presupposes a civilian government in Islamabad strong enough to end, once and for all, the ongoing repression of the minorities by centrally-controlled Army, paramilitary, police and intelligence agencies.
The civilian government established in 2008 has been severely inhibited by its fear of incurring the displeasure of the Army and of thus provoking an eventual reimposition of military rule. In particular, it has been unable to achieve effective jurisdiction over the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). More than a year after taking office, it has been unable to determine the whereabouts and status of 816 of the Baluch and Sindhi activists incarcerated by the ISI during the Musharraf period.
The United States should press for steadily strengthened civilian control, including control over all intelligence agencies, and should oppose any attempt to reimpose military rule in the name of political stability and U.S. security needs.
2.Promote Demilitarization
The process of consolidating civilian rule and of moving toward an accommodation with the minorities will remain precarious unless the preponderant strength of the armed forces in Pakistani society, relative to that of other institutions, is progressively reduced. The United States has been primarily responsible for inflating the armed forces to their present gargantuan proportions by providing $17.5 billion in military aid since 1954 and should now reorient its future policies in order to bring about a healthier balance in civil and military power.
Although ostensibly provided for other purposes during the cold war, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and now the war on terror, most of the weaponry provided has been desired by Pakistan to bolster its balance of power with India. In addition to this cornucopia of Congressionally-authorized weapons aid, the United States is now providing $800 million annually in largely unmonitored cash subsidies to the armed forces in the form of Coalition Support Funds (CSF), nominally for the purpose of fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The United States should significantly scale down CSF support in accordance with the findings of investigations by the General Accounting Office and by a House Oversight Committee headed by Rep. John Tierney of Massachusetts. At the same time, it should cut back weapons aid not directly related to operations in the Afghan border region. It should insist on end use agreements with the armed forces restricting the use of US-supplied weaponry to such operations and barring their use in the repression of ethnic minorities. American jet aircraft and helicopters provided for use on the Afghan border have been widely used against Baluch insurgents with the full knowledge of U.S. military authorities.
Taking advantage of their unchecked power during successive U.S.-backed military dictatorships, the armed forces have established a business empire under their control ranging from bakeries and beauty parlors to banks, insurance companies, TV channels and cement factories. As part of a broader effort to reduce the grip of the armed forces over Pakistani society and to open up breathing space for civilian institutions, the United States should encourage the armed forces to privatize many of these ventures and to make the proceeds obtained from their sale available for reducing Pakistans colossal and growing foreign debt.
3.Encourage Respect for the Constitution
The first step towards an accommodation between Islamabad and the minorities should be the devolution of power to the provinces envisaged in the 1973 Constitution.
On September 20, 2008, President Asif Ali Zardari declared in his maiden address to Parliament that successive blows have weakened the federation, and the 1973 Constitution is the only consensus document that can fashion the social contract needed for reconciliation and harmony. On October 22, 2008, a joint session of Parliament declared that the federation must be strengthened through the process of democratic pluralism and equitable resource sharing between the provinces enshrined in the Constitution of 1973. But no action has been taken to follow up these declarations.
Why? The explanation lies in the strong Army support for a more centralized Pakistani state and a companion belief that a devolution of power will lead to Balkanization. Civilian leaders have been unwilling, so far, to confront the Army on this critical issue.
The United States would be accused of interfering in domestic Pakistani affairs if it sided openly with the advocates of the devolution of power. It has already invited such accusations needlessly with high-profile public pronouncements on security issues. Through quiet diplomacy, however, the Obama Administration should make clear that continued high levels of military and economic aid will depend on a stable political environment, and that the United States views the implementation of the 1973 Constitution as an indispensable step toward political stability.
4..Pashtunize the War against Al Qaeda
Faced with continuing failure since 2001 to find and defeat Al Qaeda forces in FATA, the United States has made minor modifications in its tactics attuned to local realities. But most of what the U.S. is doing in FATA is increasingly radicalizing the Pashtun population and driving more and more Pashtuns into the arms of Al Qaeda and its jihadi allies.
Punjabi units of the Army continue to wage offensives against Taliban and other jihadi factions, reviving historical memories of past Pashtun battles over the centuries with invading Punjabis.
The most self-defeating aspect of the U.S. role in FATA continues to be the extensive civilian casualties resulting from the use of Predator and Reaper unmanned drone aircraft for air strikes against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts. More than 30 such attacks have occurred since August, 2008. As the Pashtun governor of the NWFP said, these strikes are counterproductive. This is looking for a quick fix, when all it will do is attract more jihadis.
Whether the drone attacks come from secret bases in Pakistan or from Afghanistan, they are viewed throughout Pakistan as violations of Pakistani sovereignty. To the extent that the United States transgresses into Pakistani territory to pursue Al Qaeda, as has been threatened, or is perceived as doing so, it will stoke anti- Americanism in Pakistan and undermine the Pakistan government.
In addition to lowering its military profile in FATA, the United States should take other steps to create a favorable political environment for operations against Al Qaeda. The United States is widely despised in FATA as the sponsor of the predominantly Punjabi Pakistan Armys incursions into Pashtun territory. To counter this image, the Obama Administration should encourage a gradual reduction in the role of Pakistani forces in operations against Al Qaeda and should demonstrate to the FATA Pashtuns that it understands their political aspirations.
The FATA Pashtuns treasure their long-standing autonomy and do not want to be ruled by the Punjabi-dominated central government. As an International Crisis Group report (March 13, 2008) -has recognized, what they want is integration into the Pashtun NWFP. This would place them under the same legal system and the same Political Parties Act applicable to other Pakistanis and would end the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulations, a legacy of British colonialism, which gives the central government arbitrary law and order powers. The Obama Administration should support FATA aspirations and should delay implementation of the Reconstruction Opportunity Zones envisaged in pending Congressional legislation until FATA becomes part of NWFP. In the meantime, instead of permitting the central government to administer the huge amount of U.S. aid now going into FATA, the Administration should insist that most of it be dispensed by the NWFP provincial government as a condition for its continuance.
Al Qaeda and its foreign fighters, mostly Arab, depend for their sanctuary in FATA on local support from the Taliban, which is based almost entirely in the Pashtun tribes. In contrast to Al Qaeda, with its global terrorist agenda, most of the Taliban factions focus primarily on local objectives in Afghanistan and FATA and do not pose a direct threat to the United States. American policy should therefore encourage secular Pashtun leaders to pursue peace arrangements with Taliban and Taliban-allied Islamist factions designed to end their links with Al Qaeda.
To reduce the military capabilities of the Taliban factions both in FATA and in Afghanistan, the United States would have to use CSF and other military aid leverage with the Pakistan armed forces to force a change in Pakistani policy toward the Taliban. In a con - versation intercepted by US intelligence agencies, the Army Chief of Staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, referred to a key Taliban ally, Jalaluddin Haqqani, as a strategic asset (David Sanger, The Inheritance). Pakistans double game is to support and provide sanctuary for some Taliban factions while taking enough action against others to keep U.S. aid flowing.
5. Earmark U.S. Aid for Sind and Baluchistan
The human consequences of the economic disparity between the Punjab and the minority provinces are vividly dramatized by grave crises in health and education in Sind and Baluchistan that provide fertile ground for jihadi extremist groups in recruiting students for their madrassas. The United States and multilateral aid institutions should earmark aid for health and education projects in these two provinces, focusing especially on emergency food programs to overcome widespread malnutrition.
Conclusions and Recommendations
To Pakistan
6.Make Defense Spending Transparent
As the precondition for efforts to reduce the power of the armed forces relative to that of other institutions in Pakistan, the civilian government should seek the maximum possible transparency in the defense budget. The budget for all the services and for the ISI should be put before both houses of Parliament, with such agreed restrictions on specificity as security considerations may require.
Under present circumstances, the Parliament may not be able to exercise its right to approve the budget. But civilian political leaders should insist on transparency and should be prepared to take their case to the people if the armed forces refuse to submit the defense budget to the scrutiny of their elected representatives.
7. Set the Stage for Negotiations with the Baluch
Pending action to carry out the constitutional reforms envisaged by Parliament in its October 22, 2008 resolution, the government of Pakistan should take the following steps to create a favorable climate for productive negotiations to end the Baluch insurgency.
8.Implement the 1973 Constitution
Successive military regimes have mutilated the 1973 Constitution beyond recognition with a series of crippling amendments designed to strengthen Presidential power at the expense of the Prime Minister and the National Assembly. On top of the Eighth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth amendments, the late Zia Ul Haq codified the power of the President to dismiss Parliament at will with Article 58 (2b).
All of the PPPs coalition partners, plus Nawaz Sharifs Pakistan Muslim League (N), favor action to nullify these amendments and to restore the 1973 Constitution to its original form. President Zardari appears to be delaying action to avoid antagonizing the Army.
After restoring the 1973 constitution to its original form, Parliament should implement its provisional autonomy provisions, adding agriculture to the list of provincial subjects, and should remove any ambiguity concerning the powers belonging to the provinces by eliminating the Concurrent List (powers to be shared by the central government and the provinces). The 1973 Constitution provided for the elimination of the Concurrent List by 1983.
9.End Economic Exploitation of the Minority Provinces
The limited degree of provincial autonomy envisaged in the 1973 Constitution would not in itself end the existing exploitation of the minority provinces by the Punjab in the absence of broader reforms centering on three issues: the inequitable distribution of tax revenues by the National Finance Commission, the denial of a fair share of the Indus River waters to Sind and the monopoly of control over the exploitation of natural resources in the minority provinces now exercised by the central government.
The existing criteria for the distribution of tax revenues among the provinces are grossly inequitable and should be radically changed. Not only is the central governments share of the total revenues collected excessive. More important, the allocation of the remaining portion between the provinces unfairly favors the Punjab because it is based solely on the criterion of population. Equity requires that the Commission also take into account the per capita income in each province, the level of social development, as reported in the United Nations Human Development Index, and the revenues generated by the exploitation of natural resources by each province.
The most glaring inequities in the relations between the Punjab and the minority provinces exist with respect to the exploitation of natural resources. Immediate action should be taken by the central government to reach agreement with Baluchistan concerning the royalties paid for its Sui gas and to negotiate agreements with the other minority provinces giving them an agreed share of the benefits of the exploitation of new oil, gas and mineral resources. Part Five, section 158 of the 1973 Constitution should be implemented, and Part Two, section Three should be nullified to avoid conflict with Article 70(4), which gives autonomy to the provinces in resource exploitation.
For Sind, the equitable distribution of the Indus river waters for irrigation is a life and death matter. The central government should press the Punjab to honor the 1991 inter-provincial accord on the Indus waters, stop the construction of barrages and link canals that deny waters to the lower riparian Sind and promote the construction of hydroelectric projects in Sind that will help to generate new water resources.
The Kalabagh Dam project should be set aside in favor of the Dasu, Bunji and Thakot hydroelectric projects, which can generate vast new power and water resources without endangering the Peshawar Valley.
10.Empower Local Government
In their efforts to increase centralized power, successive military governments have abolished local control over municipal and district governments. The power to appoint municipal and district officials should be returned to the provinces in accordance with the 1973 Constitution. The powers of provincial governors appointed by the central government should be strictly limited by Constitutional amendments to assure that governors are not used by the central government to undermine the power accorded to the provinces in the 1973 Constitution.
11.Recognize Ethnic Identities
The designation of the NWFP as Pukhtunkhwa would mark an important first step towards the official recognition of ethnic identities in Pakistan and should be followed by the incorporation of FATA and the Pashtun enclaves of northern Baluchistan into a single Pashtun state. The reorganization of states in India on a linguistic basis in 1958 has led to a significant reduction in inter-provincial tensions.
Pakistans official language policy exacerbates ethnic tensions by enshrining Urdu, spoken by eight percent of the population, as the sole officially-recognized language in the Federation. An important psychological step towards easing ethnic tensions would be the designation of all of Pakistans languages as national languages. This should be accompanied by the removal of limitations on Pashtu, Baluch and Sindhi in education and broadcasting designed to promote Urdu.
12.Strengthen the Power of the Senate
The key to stabilizing the Federation lies in strengthening the powers of the Senate in order to offset the power of the Punjab, with its population dominance, in the National Assembly. Although the four provinces have equal representation in the Senate, the Senate in Pakistan has much less power than the U.S. Senate. Democratization in Pakistan and the reduction of ethnic tensions would be greatly enhanced if the Senate had the right to initiate money bills and to approve key Federal appointments, including high court judges, members of Federal public service commissions and the chiefs of the armed forces.
Bhuttos 1973 dismissal of an elected Baluch provincial government demonstrated vividly to the ethnic minorities their vulnerable position under the existing Constitution. It is often cited by Baluch, Sindhi and Pashtun leaders who favor secession or insist that justice for the minorities can only be achieved through a confederation or outright secession. But the late Baluch leader Ghaus Bux Bijenjo, opposing secession, proposed a significant compromise. The Baluch would recognize Islamabads power to take over a province, he said, if it were expressly authorized to do so for a limited purpose and for a specified period of time, by a two-thirds Senate majority. This proposal was dismissed out of hand by Zia Ul Haq in 1978, but merits serious consideration today in the intensifying debate over how to preserve the Pakistan Federation.
There are some recommendations within this report that many western nations would not even consider, though they may get applied in the USA.
Report: Pakistan The State of The Union
Conclusions and Recommendations
To The United States
1.Support Civilian Governance
An enduring political accommodation between the central government and the ethnic minorities presupposes a civilian government in Islamabad strong enough to end, once and for all, the ongoing repression of the minorities by centrally-controlled Army, paramilitary, police and intelligence agencies.
The civilian government established in 2008 has been severely inhibited by its fear of incurring the displeasure of the Army and of thus provoking an eventual reimposition of military rule. In particular, it has been unable to achieve effective jurisdiction over the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). More than a year after taking office, it has been unable to determine the whereabouts and status of 816 of the Baluch and Sindhi activists incarcerated by the ISI during the Musharraf period.
The United States should press for steadily strengthened civilian control, including control over all intelligence agencies, and should oppose any attempt to reimpose military rule in the name of political stability and U.S. security needs.
2.Promote Demilitarization
The process of consolidating civilian rule and of moving toward an accommodation with the minorities will remain precarious unless the preponderant strength of the armed forces in Pakistani society, relative to that of other institutions, is progressively reduced. The United States has been primarily responsible for inflating the armed forces to their present gargantuan proportions by providing $17.5 billion in military aid since 1954 and should now reorient its future policies in order to bring about a healthier balance in civil and military power.
Although ostensibly provided for other purposes during the cold war, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and now the war on terror, most of the weaponry provided has been desired by Pakistan to bolster its balance of power with India. In addition to this cornucopia of Congressionally-authorized weapons aid, the United States is now providing $800 million annually in largely unmonitored cash subsidies to the armed forces in the form of Coalition Support Funds (CSF), nominally for the purpose of fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The United States should significantly scale down CSF support in accordance with the findings of investigations by the General Accounting Office and by a House Oversight Committee headed by Rep. John Tierney of Massachusetts. At the same time, it should cut back weapons aid not directly related to operations in the Afghan border region. It should insist on end use agreements with the armed forces restricting the use of US-supplied weaponry to such operations and barring their use in the repression of ethnic minorities. American jet aircraft and helicopters provided for use on the Afghan border have been widely used against Baluch insurgents with the full knowledge of U.S. military authorities.
Taking advantage of their unchecked power during successive U.S.-backed military dictatorships, the armed forces have established a business empire under their control ranging from bakeries and beauty parlors to banks, insurance companies, TV channels and cement factories. As part of a broader effort to reduce the grip of the armed forces over Pakistani society and to open up breathing space for civilian institutions, the United States should encourage the armed forces to privatize many of these ventures and to make the proceeds obtained from their sale available for reducing Pakistans colossal and growing foreign debt.
3.Encourage Respect for the Constitution
The first step towards an accommodation between Islamabad and the minorities should be the devolution of power to the provinces envisaged in the 1973 Constitution.
On September 20, 2008, President Asif Ali Zardari declared in his maiden address to Parliament that successive blows have weakened the federation, and the 1973 Constitution is the only consensus document that can fashion the social contract needed for reconciliation and harmony. On October 22, 2008, a joint session of Parliament declared that the federation must be strengthened through the process of democratic pluralism and equitable resource sharing between the provinces enshrined in the Constitution of 1973. But no action has been taken to follow up these declarations.
Why? The explanation lies in the strong Army support for a more centralized Pakistani state and a companion belief that a devolution of power will lead to Balkanization. Civilian leaders have been unwilling, so far, to confront the Army on this critical issue.
The United States would be accused of interfering in domestic Pakistani affairs if it sided openly with the advocates of the devolution of power. It has already invited such accusations needlessly with high-profile public pronouncements on security issues. Through quiet diplomacy, however, the Obama Administration should make clear that continued high levels of military and economic aid will depend on a stable political environment, and that the United States views the implementation of the 1973 Constitution as an indispensable step toward political stability.
4..Pashtunize the War against Al Qaeda
Faced with continuing failure since 2001 to find and defeat Al Qaeda forces in FATA, the United States has made minor modifications in its tactics attuned to local realities. But most of what the U.S. is doing in FATA is increasingly radicalizing the Pashtun population and driving more and more Pashtuns into the arms of Al Qaeda and its jihadi allies.
Punjabi units of the Army continue to wage offensives against Taliban and other jihadi factions, reviving historical memories of past Pashtun battles over the centuries with invading Punjabis.
The most self-defeating aspect of the U.S. role in FATA continues to be the extensive civilian casualties resulting from the use of Predator and Reaper unmanned drone aircraft for air strikes against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban hideouts. More than 30 such attacks have occurred since August, 2008. As the Pashtun governor of the NWFP said, these strikes are counterproductive. This is looking for a quick fix, when all it will do is attract more jihadis.
Whether the drone attacks come from secret bases in Pakistan or from Afghanistan, they are viewed throughout Pakistan as violations of Pakistani sovereignty. To the extent that the United States transgresses into Pakistani territory to pursue Al Qaeda, as has been threatened, or is perceived as doing so, it will stoke anti- Americanism in Pakistan and undermine the Pakistan government.
In addition to lowering its military profile in FATA, the United States should take other steps to create a favorable political environment for operations against Al Qaeda. The United States is widely despised in FATA as the sponsor of the predominantly Punjabi Pakistan Armys incursions into Pashtun territory. To counter this image, the Obama Administration should encourage a gradual reduction in the role of Pakistani forces in operations against Al Qaeda and should demonstrate to the FATA Pashtuns that it understands their political aspirations.
The FATA Pashtuns treasure their long-standing autonomy and do not want to be ruled by the Punjabi-dominated central government. As an International Crisis Group report (March 13, 2008) -has recognized, what they want is integration into the Pashtun NWFP. This would place them under the same legal system and the same Political Parties Act applicable to other Pakistanis and would end the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulations, a legacy of British colonialism, which gives the central government arbitrary law and order powers. The Obama Administration should support FATA aspirations and should delay implementation of the Reconstruction Opportunity Zones envisaged in pending Congressional legislation until FATA becomes part of NWFP. In the meantime, instead of permitting the central government to administer the huge amount of U.S. aid now going into FATA, the Administration should insist that most of it be dispensed by the NWFP provincial government as a condition for its continuance.
Al Qaeda and its foreign fighters, mostly Arab, depend for their sanctuary in FATA on local support from the Taliban, which is based almost entirely in the Pashtun tribes. In contrast to Al Qaeda, with its global terrorist agenda, most of the Taliban factions focus primarily on local objectives in Afghanistan and FATA and do not pose a direct threat to the United States. American policy should therefore encourage secular Pashtun leaders to pursue peace arrangements with Taliban and Taliban-allied Islamist factions designed to end their links with Al Qaeda.
To reduce the military capabilities of the Taliban factions both in FATA and in Afghanistan, the United States would have to use CSF and other military aid leverage with the Pakistan armed forces to force a change in Pakistani policy toward the Taliban. In a con - versation intercepted by US intelligence agencies, the Army Chief of Staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, referred to a key Taliban ally, Jalaluddin Haqqani, as a strategic asset (David Sanger, The Inheritance). Pakistans double game is to support and provide sanctuary for some Taliban factions while taking enough action against others to keep U.S. aid flowing.
5. Earmark U.S. Aid for Sind and Baluchistan
The human consequences of the economic disparity between the Punjab and the minority provinces are vividly dramatized by grave crises in health and education in Sind and Baluchistan that provide fertile ground for jihadi extremist groups in recruiting students for their madrassas. The United States and multilateral aid institutions should earmark aid for health and education projects in these two provinces, focusing especially on emergency food programs to overcome widespread malnutrition.
Conclusions and Recommendations
To Pakistan
6.Make Defense Spending Transparent
As the precondition for efforts to reduce the power of the armed forces relative to that of other institutions in Pakistan, the civilian government should seek the maximum possible transparency in the defense budget. The budget for all the services and for the ISI should be put before both houses of Parliament, with such agreed restrictions on specificity as security considerations may require.
Under present circumstances, the Parliament may not be able to exercise its right to approve the budget. But civilian political leaders should insist on transparency and should be prepared to take their case to the people if the armed forces refuse to submit the defense budget to the scrutiny of their elected representatives.
7. Set the Stage for Negotiations with the Baluch
Pending action to carry out the constitutional reforms envisaged by Parliament in its October 22, 2008 resolution, the government of Pakistan should take the following steps to create a favorable climate for productive negotiations to end the Baluch insurgency.
- The Army should declare a six-month ceasefire in Baluchistan. Baluch insurgent groups declared a unilateral ceasefire when the PPP government was elected, but the Army did not reciprocate.
- The construction of new military cantonments in Baluchistan should be suspended. This was a key recommendation of the 2005 Subcommittee on Baluchistan of the Pakistan Senate.
- Checkpoints manned by Coast Guard units of the Frontier Corps throughout the interior of Baluchistan should be suspended. The 2005 Senate Subcommittee reported that these unnecessary checkpoints are disliked by the people of Baluchistan, creating hatred on the part of women and children who are humiliated, and called for reassignment of the Coast Guard units concerned to perform their primary duties of checking the smuggling of arms and narcotics on the sea coast.
8.Implement the 1973 Constitution
Successive military regimes have mutilated the 1973 Constitution beyond recognition with a series of crippling amendments designed to strengthen Presidential power at the expense of the Prime Minister and the National Assembly. On top of the Eighth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth amendments, the late Zia Ul Haq codified the power of the President to dismiss Parliament at will with Article 58 (2b).
All of the PPPs coalition partners, plus Nawaz Sharifs Pakistan Muslim League (N), favor action to nullify these amendments and to restore the 1973 Constitution to its original form. President Zardari appears to be delaying action to avoid antagonizing the Army.
After restoring the 1973 constitution to its original form, Parliament should implement its provisional autonomy provisions, adding agriculture to the list of provincial subjects, and should remove any ambiguity concerning the powers belonging to the provinces by eliminating the Concurrent List (powers to be shared by the central government and the provinces). The 1973 Constitution provided for the elimination of the Concurrent List by 1983.
9.End Economic Exploitation of the Minority Provinces
The limited degree of provincial autonomy envisaged in the 1973 Constitution would not in itself end the existing exploitation of the minority provinces by the Punjab in the absence of broader reforms centering on three issues: the inequitable distribution of tax revenues by the National Finance Commission, the denial of a fair share of the Indus River waters to Sind and the monopoly of control over the exploitation of natural resources in the minority provinces now exercised by the central government.
The existing criteria for the distribution of tax revenues among the provinces are grossly inequitable and should be radically changed. Not only is the central governments share of the total revenues collected excessive. More important, the allocation of the remaining portion between the provinces unfairly favors the Punjab because it is based solely on the criterion of population. Equity requires that the Commission also take into account the per capita income in each province, the level of social development, as reported in the United Nations Human Development Index, and the revenues generated by the exploitation of natural resources by each province.
The most glaring inequities in the relations between the Punjab and the minority provinces exist with respect to the exploitation of natural resources. Immediate action should be taken by the central government to reach agreement with Baluchistan concerning the royalties paid for its Sui gas and to negotiate agreements with the other minority provinces giving them an agreed share of the benefits of the exploitation of new oil, gas and mineral resources. Part Five, section 158 of the 1973 Constitution should be implemented, and Part Two, section Three should be nullified to avoid conflict with Article 70(4), which gives autonomy to the provinces in resource exploitation.
For Sind, the equitable distribution of the Indus river waters for irrigation is a life and death matter. The central government should press the Punjab to honor the 1991 inter-provincial accord on the Indus waters, stop the construction of barrages and link canals that deny waters to the lower riparian Sind and promote the construction of hydroelectric projects in Sind that will help to generate new water resources.
The Kalabagh Dam project should be set aside in favor of the Dasu, Bunji and Thakot hydroelectric projects, which can generate vast new power and water resources without endangering the Peshawar Valley.
10.Empower Local Government
In their efforts to increase centralized power, successive military governments have abolished local control over municipal and district governments. The power to appoint municipal and district officials should be returned to the provinces in accordance with the 1973 Constitution. The powers of provincial governors appointed by the central government should be strictly limited by Constitutional amendments to assure that governors are not used by the central government to undermine the power accorded to the provinces in the 1973 Constitution.
11.Recognize Ethnic Identities
The designation of the NWFP as Pukhtunkhwa would mark an important first step towards the official recognition of ethnic identities in Pakistan and should be followed by the incorporation of FATA and the Pashtun enclaves of northern Baluchistan into a single Pashtun state. The reorganization of states in India on a linguistic basis in 1958 has led to a significant reduction in inter-provincial tensions.
Pakistans official language policy exacerbates ethnic tensions by enshrining Urdu, spoken by eight percent of the population, as the sole officially-recognized language in the Federation. An important psychological step towards easing ethnic tensions would be the designation of all of Pakistans languages as national languages. This should be accompanied by the removal of limitations on Pashtu, Baluch and Sindhi in education and broadcasting designed to promote Urdu.
12.Strengthen the Power of the Senate
The key to stabilizing the Federation lies in strengthening the powers of the Senate in order to offset the power of the Punjab, with its population dominance, in the National Assembly. Although the four provinces have equal representation in the Senate, the Senate in Pakistan has much less power than the U.S. Senate. Democratization in Pakistan and the reduction of ethnic tensions would be greatly enhanced if the Senate had the right to initiate money bills and to approve key Federal appointments, including high court judges, members of Federal public service commissions and the chiefs of the armed forces.
Bhuttos 1973 dismissal of an elected Baluch provincial government demonstrated vividly to the ethnic minorities their vulnerable position under the existing Constitution. It is often cited by Baluch, Sindhi and Pashtun leaders who favor secession or insist that justice for the minorities can only be achieved through a confederation or outright secession. But the late Baluch leader Ghaus Bux Bijenjo, opposing secession, proposed a significant compromise. The Baluch would recognize Islamabads power to take over a province, he said, if it were expressly authorized to do so for a limited purpose and for a specified period of time, by a two-thirds Senate majority. This proposal was dismissed out of hand by Zia Ul Haq in 1978, but merits serious consideration today in the intensifying debate over how to preserve the Pakistan Federation.
There are some recommendations within this report that many western nations would not even consider, though they may get applied in the USA.
pak-marine
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No country has b*lls to invade Pakistan .... If they think can they are halucinating all they can do max is play their typical proxy sh*ty tactics & Pakistan can crush it effectively also i dont think so any one will dare to even think in their wildest dream to try and invade a nuclear power.
However what the world is getting so paranoid about millitants taking power in Pakistan FYI PA is killing these rats effectively very soon they will be off to their permanant homeland in Jahanum "HELL" or Afghanistan .
pak-marine
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Pak have excelent relations with Iran and all neighbours .... where exactly are you getting this silly info from ? Its India we are rivals with and main reason in occupation of Kashmir , and unless resolved will stay the same , how exactly did u reach the conclusion that Pakistan has created rivals with India? India occupies kashmir which is a eternal part of Pakistan ..>! Pakistan and afghans are brothers , under occupation and pressure so called Afghan govt will say any thing for funds.....i reject your remarks they are really unjustified, .....
BaburCM
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Presently, You are paying the price to create Taliban.
You just wait. Soon we will reply to all these Indian sponsored suicide bombings. India is our greatest enemy and these suicide attacks once again prove how vicious the enemy really is. It will be blood for blood. We will seek sweet revenge for every innocent drop of blood spilt. The small willied folks will weep blood. You are not going anywhere. You are going to pay for the sins you're committing against innocent Pakistanis. The sacrifices of these innocent people will not go in vain. Mark my bloody words you cowardly penisless bunch.
Last edited:
Energon
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Why are you people crowding good threads with all this flaming? Do you not have any consideration for other posters who actually want to engage in discussion or debate? Ratus Ratus has tried his hardest to constructively discuss this matter, but the rest of you keep drowning his work with worthless drivel.
There are many other threads on this forum where you can indulge in flame games using the same old and tired rhetoric, why not just stick to that?
There are many other threads on this forum where you can indulge in flame games using the same old and tired rhetoric, why not just stick to that?
rubyjackass
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Please give links to sources.
ARSENAL6
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I think the millitants would take over and run India before it lays its hands on Pakistan.
Admal Keyani
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And Jeypore do you really think that America would be dumb enough to invade Pakistan, that would be like Vietnam but a 1000 times worse. The Americans don't have the Man Power to do such actions, nor do they have guts to invade Pakistan. If that was the case why hasn't America invaded North Korea, that nation is more volatile than Pakistan, Yet the americans have been forced to the negiation tables on the terms of the North Koreans. And if Pakistan was invaded the nation would rise together, in arms and the spirit of 1965 will come again. Utimately we might be destroyed but we will take the enermy with us as we Muslims do not fear death. But of course we don't want that, we want to live in harmony with our neighbours .
AgNoStiC MuSliM
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Selig Harrison authored this - that explains it. He has been caught lying about Baluchistan before, and has advocated for the break up of Pakistan and accused it of 'genocide' against the Baluch, when even the numbers pushed by baluch rebels don't add up to such a fantastic claim.
Cross posting from elsewhere:
An excerpt form his book in 1981 about the events at Chamalang:
This excerpt is from Pakistan's Security Under Zia, 1977-1988 by Robert Wirsing
So why did he lie and make up things, and IMO continue to have a very anti-Pakistan position?
In his own book on Baluchistan (from which the first excerpt is taken) he admitted that he developed close friendships with the Baluch sardars that were leading the insurgency in the seventies. He lived, slept and ate with them during that time. He has ever since been vehemently anti-Pakistan, so any claims from him on Pakistan cannot be considered objective, unbiased or truthful.
Christine Fair on Foreign Policy magazine argued that the Indians were supporting the Baluch, and this was a bit of an open secret, no doubt unacknowledged since the West has growing strategic and commercial ties with India.
Fair has no such connections or history of lying or being anti-India or pro-Pakistan, and as such I find her views on it far more credible.
However, looking at one reason provided by Selig as to why the Indians are not supporting the Baluch, "Baloch rebels have fought with ineffectual small arms.
“They say this weaponry has been purchased on the black-market, with funding from Baloch compatriots in Dubai and other Persian Gulf states. Should India in fact, decide to give the Baloch sophisticated weaponry and logistic help, they could rapidly expand their present force of 4,500 fighters drawing on the large number of Baloch educated unemployed,”.
Well, the Taliban have a force of between 4000 to 7000 in Swat alone, and B Mehsud's militia reportedly numbers close to 20,000, and they brandish highly sophisticated communications gear, have shown themselves to have access to excellent intelligence (the ISI Colonel killed in the Lahore bombing yesterday), and plenty of heavy weaponry and funds.
Yep - its all India, with the West covering up for its own interests - strategic and economic.
Cross posting from elsewhere:
An excerpt form his book in 1981 about the events at Chamalang:
This excerpt is from Pakistan's Security Under Zia, 1977-1988 by Robert Wirsing
So why did he lie and make up things, and IMO continue to have a very anti-Pakistan position?
In his own book on Baluchistan (from which the first excerpt is taken) he admitted that he developed close friendships with the Baluch sardars that were leading the insurgency in the seventies. He lived, slept and ate with them during that time. He has ever since been vehemently anti-Pakistan, so any claims from him on Pakistan cannot be considered objective, unbiased or truthful.
Christine Fair on Foreign Policy magazine argued that the Indians were supporting the Baluch, and this was a bit of an open secret, no doubt unacknowledged since the West has growing strategic and commercial ties with India.
Fair has no such connections or history of lying or being anti-India or pro-Pakistan, and as such I find her views on it far more credible.
However, looking at one reason provided by Selig as to why the Indians are not supporting the Baluch, "Baloch rebels have fought with ineffectual small arms.
“They say this weaponry has been purchased on the black-market, with funding from Baloch compatriots in Dubai and other Persian Gulf states. Should India in fact, decide to give the Baloch sophisticated weaponry and logistic help, they could rapidly expand their present force of 4,500 fighters drawing on the large number of Baloch educated unemployed,”.
Well, the Taliban have a force of between 4000 to 7000 in Swat alone, and B Mehsud's militia reportedly numbers close to 20,000, and they brandish highly sophisticated communications gear, have shown themselves to have access to excellent intelligence (the ISI Colonel killed in the Lahore bombing yesterday), and plenty of heavy weaponry and funds.
Yep - its all India, with the West covering up for its own interests - strategic and economic.
Last edited:
jeypore
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What is Christine Fair referring to?
Would the MEA kindly seek to address what she has claimed asap?
April 27, 2009 — drsubrotoroy
Almost three years ago when the Baloch leader Nawab Bugti was killed by bombardment during the Musharraf-regime, I was moved to research and write a short analysis of Balochistan for the first time. I said inter alia
“because there are two million Balochis in Iranian Balochistan, Pakistan’s Balochi nationalists have had a declared enemy to their west in the Iranian Government ~ the Pahlevi regime even provided Italian-made American Huey helicopter gunships with Iranian pilots to help Bhutto crush the Baloch rebellions of the early 1970s. In fact, Balochi rebels have had no military allies except the pre-communist Government of Afghanistan under Daud, who ‘ordered the establishment of a training camp at Qandahar for Baloch liberation fighters. Between 10,000 and 15,000 Baloch youths were trained and armed there’ (R Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan 1988, p. 78). The Governments of India or the United States lack motivation or capability to help, and Balochistan may be doomed to becoming a large human rights/genocidal disaster of the next decade. An independent Balochistan may be unviable, being overwhelmed by its riches while having too small, uneducated and backward a population of its own, and powerful greedy neighbours on either side… Today, the Pashtun of Pakistan and Afghanistan (as well as perhaps Sindhis of Baloch origin) may be the only interlocutors who can prevent a genocide and mediate a peace between Balochi nationalists and Musharraf’s ruthless Punjabi military-businessmen determined to colonize Balochistan completely with Chinese help, effectively subsidising their misgovernance elsewhere with Balochistan’s riches…”
Raja Anwar had been a close friend and associate of ZA Bhutto, the founder of Pakistan’s ruling party, and his book on Afghanistan published 20 years ago is required reading.
The wonders of the Internet sent me back to this subject a few days ago when a Pakistani website claimed that the American analyst Dr Christine Fair of RAND said she had visited an Indian consulate in Zahedan, Iran, and alleged to her interlocutors that the consulate was “not issuing visas as the main activity” .
Dr Fair’s reported words seemed to me to be surprising, so I wrote to her seeking a confirmation that she had been quoted correctly, when the Pakistani website very kindly sent me the link to her words at a recent gathering of American and British observers discussing Pakistan. This is what Dr Fair said at that gathering on this topic (emphasis added):
“I think it would be a mistake to completely disregard Pakistan’s regional perceptions due to doubts about Indian competence in executing covert operations. That misses the point entirely. And I think it is unfair to dismiss the notion that Pakistan’s apprehensions about Afghanistan stem in part from its security competition with India. Having visited the Indian mission in Zahedan, Iran, I can assure you they are not issuing visas as the main activity! Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar (through which it supported the Northern Alliance) and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Qandahar along the border. Indian officials have told me privately that they are pumping money into Baluchistan. Kabul has encouraged India to engage in provocative activities such as using the Border Roads Organization to build sensitive parts of the Ring Road and use the Indo-Tibetan police force for security. It is also building schools on a sensitive part of the border in Kunar–across from Bajaur. Kabul’s motivations for encouraging these activities are as obvious as India’s interest in engaging in them. Even if by some act of miraculous diplomacy the territorial issues were to be resolved, Pakistan would remain an insecure state. Given the realities of the subcontinent (e.g., India’s rise and its more effective foreign relations with all of Pakistan’s near and far neighbors), these fears are bound to grow, not lessen. This suggests that without some means of compelling Pakistan to abandon its reliance upon militancy, it will become ever more interested in using it — and the militants will likely continue to proliferate beyond Pakistan’s control.”
Now I have nothing to do with the Government of India and have no idea about the evidence relating to the precise facts being alleged here. But I do have some circumstantial evidence as well as a personal reason to be curious, as my father was an Indian diplomat in Tehran during 1954-1957 and I was in fact born there.
I recalled him having told me he had travelled in that region and today he confirmed that he had in fact, from the Tehran Embassy as part of his official duties as Commercial Secretary and Consul, visited what was then an Indian Vice-Consulate at Zahedan, peopled by a single Indian Vice-Consul with whom he had spent two days.
That was more than 50 years ago — so the “Indian mission” that Dr Fair said she visited in Zahedan is far from being anything new whatsoever. In fact, I would predict it was probably something that existed during British India too and that it was precisely an outpost of British India issuing visas for anyone headed towards Quetta in what was then British Baluchistan.
Could the Consulate be upto anything else? Hmmm, let’s see, how about assisting in the complex overall discussions, now apparently stalled or aborted, between Iran, Pakistan and India over the gas pipeline perhaps?
In other words, there might be any number of perfectly legitimate reasons for India to be represented in Zahedan as it has been for more than half a century — the allegation contained in the American discussion of India fomenting trouble for Pakistan in Balochistan may be entirely baseless.
Did India once support the Northern Alliance? Of course, as did Iran too, but that was all pre 9/11 during the extended Afghan civil war before the toppling of the Mullah Umar Government by the Northern Alliance allied with the United States! That is wholly a separate thing from any claim that India from Iranian soil has caused trouble in Balochistan.
Such an aspersion coming from such a source would be easily and delightedly picked up by those in Pakistan looking for exogenous explanations of their problems. For example, if you watch the video of the ghastly murder of the Polish engineer Piotr Stanczak by the Pakistani Taliban, you will find a demented Pakistani commentator in the background disclaiming any Pakistani responsibility for it saying instead it was all India’s fault and India has been financing the Pakistani Taliban with “billions”! Such is the extent of the psychosis. “Delta Dawn, what’s that flower you have on…?”
The Government of India obviously needs to address Dr Fair’s claim and seek to squarely refute what she has said in these remarks.
Subroto Roy, Kolkata
What is Christine Fair referring to? Would the MEA kindly seek to address what she has claimed asap? Independent Indian: Work & Life of Dr Subroto Roy
Would the MEA kindly seek to address what she has claimed asap?
April 27, 2009 — drsubrotoroy
Almost three years ago when the Baloch leader Nawab Bugti was killed by bombardment during the Musharraf-regime, I was moved to research and write a short analysis of Balochistan for the first time. I said inter alia
“because there are two million Balochis in Iranian Balochistan, Pakistan’s Balochi nationalists have had a declared enemy to their west in the Iranian Government ~ the Pahlevi regime even provided Italian-made American Huey helicopter gunships with Iranian pilots to help Bhutto crush the Baloch rebellions of the early 1970s. In fact, Balochi rebels have had no military allies except the pre-communist Government of Afghanistan under Daud, who ‘ordered the establishment of a training camp at Qandahar for Baloch liberation fighters. Between 10,000 and 15,000 Baloch youths were trained and armed there’ (R Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan 1988, p. 78). The Governments of India or the United States lack motivation or capability to help, and Balochistan may be doomed to becoming a large human rights/genocidal disaster of the next decade. An independent Balochistan may be unviable, being overwhelmed by its riches while having too small, uneducated and backward a population of its own, and powerful greedy neighbours on either side… Today, the Pashtun of Pakistan and Afghanistan (as well as perhaps Sindhis of Baloch origin) may be the only interlocutors who can prevent a genocide and mediate a peace between Balochi nationalists and Musharraf’s ruthless Punjabi military-businessmen determined to colonize Balochistan completely with Chinese help, effectively subsidising their misgovernance elsewhere with Balochistan’s riches…”
Raja Anwar had been a close friend and associate of ZA Bhutto, the founder of Pakistan’s ruling party, and his book on Afghanistan published 20 years ago is required reading.
The wonders of the Internet sent me back to this subject a few days ago when a Pakistani website claimed that the American analyst Dr Christine Fair of RAND said she had visited an Indian consulate in Zahedan, Iran, and alleged to her interlocutors that the consulate was “not issuing visas as the main activity” .
Dr Fair’s reported words seemed to me to be surprising, so I wrote to her seeking a confirmation that she had been quoted correctly, when the Pakistani website very kindly sent me the link to her words at a recent gathering of American and British observers discussing Pakistan. This is what Dr Fair said at that gathering on this topic (emphasis added):
“I think it would be a mistake to completely disregard Pakistan’s regional perceptions due to doubts about Indian competence in executing covert operations. That misses the point entirely. And I think it is unfair to dismiss the notion that Pakistan’s apprehensions about Afghanistan stem in part from its security competition with India. Having visited the Indian mission in Zahedan, Iran, I can assure you they are not issuing visas as the main activity! Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar (through which it supported the Northern Alliance) and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Qandahar along the border. Indian officials have told me privately that they are pumping money into Baluchistan. Kabul has encouraged India to engage in provocative activities such as using the Border Roads Organization to build sensitive parts of the Ring Road and use the Indo-Tibetan police force for security. It is also building schools on a sensitive part of the border in Kunar–across from Bajaur. Kabul’s motivations for encouraging these activities are as obvious as India’s interest in engaging in them. Even if by some act of miraculous diplomacy the territorial issues were to be resolved, Pakistan would remain an insecure state. Given the realities of the subcontinent (e.g., India’s rise and its more effective foreign relations with all of Pakistan’s near and far neighbors), these fears are bound to grow, not lessen. This suggests that without some means of compelling Pakistan to abandon its reliance upon militancy, it will become ever more interested in using it — and the militants will likely continue to proliferate beyond Pakistan’s control.”
Now I have nothing to do with the Government of India and have no idea about the evidence relating to the precise facts being alleged here. But I do have some circumstantial evidence as well as a personal reason to be curious, as my father was an Indian diplomat in Tehran during 1954-1957 and I was in fact born there.
I recalled him having told me he had travelled in that region and today he confirmed that he had in fact, from the Tehran Embassy as part of his official duties as Commercial Secretary and Consul, visited what was then an Indian Vice-Consulate at Zahedan, peopled by a single Indian Vice-Consul with whom he had spent two days.
That was more than 50 years ago — so the “Indian mission” that Dr Fair said she visited in Zahedan is far from being anything new whatsoever. In fact, I would predict it was probably something that existed during British India too and that it was precisely an outpost of British India issuing visas for anyone headed towards Quetta in what was then British Baluchistan.
Could the Consulate be upto anything else? Hmmm, let’s see, how about assisting in the complex overall discussions, now apparently stalled or aborted, between Iran, Pakistan and India over the gas pipeline perhaps?
In other words, there might be any number of perfectly legitimate reasons for India to be represented in Zahedan as it has been for more than half a century — the allegation contained in the American discussion of India fomenting trouble for Pakistan in Balochistan may be entirely baseless.
Did India once support the Northern Alliance? Of course, as did Iran too, but that was all pre 9/11 during the extended Afghan civil war before the toppling of the Mullah Umar Government by the Northern Alliance allied with the United States! That is wholly a separate thing from any claim that India from Iranian soil has caused trouble in Balochistan.
Such an aspersion coming from such a source would be easily and delightedly picked up by those in Pakistan looking for exogenous explanations of their problems. For example, if you watch the video of the ghastly murder of the Polish engineer Piotr Stanczak by the Pakistani Taliban, you will find a demented Pakistani commentator in the background disclaiming any Pakistani responsibility for it saying instead it was all India’s fault and India has been financing the Pakistani Taliban with “billions”! Such is the extent of the psychosis. “Delta Dawn, what’s that flower you have on…?”
The Government of India obviously needs to address Dr Fair’s claim and seek to squarely refute what she has said in these remarks.
Subroto Roy, Kolkata
What is Christine Fair referring to? Would the MEA kindly seek to address what she has claimed asap? Independent Indian: Work & Life of Dr Subroto Roy
Energon
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No actually this isn't an open secret. A few investigations since 2002-3 have been conducted on the possible Indian involvement in the Baluch armed conflict; I won't be surprised if Selig Harrison is using the findings from those reports here. Regardless, none of them found any indication of direct Indian involvement in the protraction of the conflict; nor did modeling in regards to how the conflict would be/grow were there a foreign influence indicate the presence of any significant third party intervention. Also wasn't there an addendum issued to the foreign policy online blurb not too long after it went up clarifying the lack of Indian involvement (I don't know if the magazine itself included the similar editorial)?
Lastly, this idea of the West letting India get away with destabilizing acts in Pakistan just because of growing strategic and commercial ties is absurd. It doesn't work like that.
We say it because of your naked aggression against us which split our country into two. Nobody else has had a dealing such as this with you thus they do not say it. Think about your statements before making them.
Why are American think tanks given such credence? What is it that they know that our people on the ground do not know? Indian involvement in Balochistan is a known fact and has been spoken about at the very highest levels including statements made by President Musharraf as or recently. If the intelligence is light then its not brought up because such things set back relations. Musharraf could not have been more clear than what he said at India Today enclave about the "damage" that both sides are doing to each other through their covert activities. Not sure what else we need to see (after seeing footage of Barahamdagh Bugti being chaperoned around by Indian operatives in Afghanistan) for us to know that indeed India is aiding these elements.
Despite all of the above, a think tank in the US (which has no purpose but to steer US policy and public opinion a certain way) is being given such importance while those on the ground who see day-in and day-out on both sides of the border each other's activities are taken to be liars. Lets realize that there is ample evidence available to know so that certain anti-Pakistani elements are being helped by India.
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