| Al Jazeera, Sep 1, 2008 | |||
Nato-led troops have killed three Afghan children and injured seven during artillery fire in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Paktika. Nato officials said that the attack on Monday happened by accident. The deaths in Paktika province are expected to deepen the rift between foreign forces and the Afghan government. The Afghan government has said that more than 500 civilians have been killed during operations by foreign and Afghan forces this year. ‘Investigation under way’ In the latest incident, troops fired artillery rounds after a patrol came under fire from Taliban fighters in Paktika’s Gayan district, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said. The rounds fell close to a house where the children were later found dead. “ISAF deeply regrets this accident and an investigation as to the exact circumstances of this tragic event is now under way,” the ISAF said in a statement. Dad Mohammad Khan, a former provincial intelligence chief and politician, said: “There is basically no Taliban [killed]. The Taliban fire and then escape and then these people [foreign troops] come and bombard. Three hundred people have been killed and wounded”. The incident came hours after the US-led coalition command said its troops killed more than 220 fighters in a week of fighting in the same province. The coalition did not say where the militants were killed. Fuelling anger Meanwhile in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, hundreds of protesters blocked a road, accusing foreign troops of killing a family of four, including two children. The family members were killed in an overnight raid by international troops, a police official and witnesses said. Residents in Hud Kheil in the east of Kabul said one of the two children was eight months old and grenades killed the family members during a joint Afghan-US special forces operation. However, US special forces said they were not involved. “It was past one o’clock when the troops came and surrounded our houses,” Sulaiman, one resident, said. “They threw hand grenades in one house and killed three family members,” he said. Some locals told Al Jazeera there was an exchange of fire and that the family may have been caught in the crossfire. The latest deaths are likely to further strain relations between Afghanistan and the US and other foreign forces in the country, who have been accused of using excessive force in civilian areas. The operation came a day after Nato said it received information from a “reliable source” that pro-Taliban fighters may be planning to falsely claim that international forces killed up to 70 civilians in southern Afghanistan. The operation also comes after Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, sacked an Afghan army general and a major after more than 100 civilians were reported to have been killed in an attack by US-led coalition forces. Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst level this year, the bloodiest period since the Taliban was forced from power in 2001. |
Archive for September, 2008
Afghan children killed by Nato fire
September 2, 2008
Pakistani revolutionary poet Ahmed Faraz is dead
September 1, 2008The revolutionary Pakistani poet Ahmed Faraz, whose name is synonymous in South Asia with modern Urdu poetry, died Aug. 25 in Islamabad. He was 77.
The cause was kidney failure, said his son Shibli Faraz.
He was earlier reported to have died while being treated in a Chicago hospital after a fall in Baltimore, but he returned to his homeland, where he died.
Popular among both the cognoscenti and the general public, he was one of the few poets from the subcontinent whose verses were read as well as sung. He was in great demand at the mushaira, social gatherings — usually after dusk — at which Urdu poets recite their poems.
Often compared to legends of the past like Mohammad Iqbal and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Mr. Faraz was as popular in India as he was in his own country.
He enjoyed a near cult status in the pantheon of revolutionary poets. In India and other countries outside Pakistan, he was best known for his ghazals — poems expressing the writer’s feelings, especially about love — which were popularized by leading singers like Ghulam Ali, Mehdi Hasan, Runa Laila and Jagjit Singh.
A passionate voice for change and progress, Mr. Faraz was usually at his best when writing the poetry of love and protest. His romantic poetry made him particularly beloved by the young; the establishment was not so fond of his verses mocking and at times exposing the authorities.
An advocate for the poor and downtrodden, Mr. Faraz raised his voice against capitalists, usurpers and dictators. In the 1980s he went into a six-year self-imposed exile in Canada and Europe during the era of Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, whose military rule of Pakistan he had condemned at a mushaira and whose power seemed to drive him to heights of inspiration.
“That was the worst phase for our country’s writers,” he once said of the general’s rule. “Yet it also provided ample food for thought for the poet and made protest poetry so popular in Pakistan.”
Mr. Faraz, who was also closely associated with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his Pakistan People’s Party, wrote some of his best poetry in exile, including “Dekhtay Hain” (“Let Us Gaze”) and “Mohasara” (“The Siege”). In all, he had written 13 volumes of Urdu poetry.
Ahmed Faraz was the pseudonym of Syed Ahmad Shah, who was born in Nowshera village near Kohat in Pakistan on Jan. 14, 1931. His father, Agha Syed Muhammad Shah Bark Kohati, was a leading traditional poet.
He studied at Edwards College in Peshawar and was greatly influenced by progressive poets like Faiz and Ali Sardar Jafri. They became his role models. He obtained his master’s degree in Urdu and Persian from Peshawar University. He subsequently taught the two languages there, though he began his career as a scriptwriter with Radio Pakistan.
Mr. Faraz’s first volume of poetry, “Tanha Tanha,” was published in the late 1950s, when he was an undergraduate student, and became a huge, instant hit. He had a tendency to create controversies about himself or about various issues. He spoke against marriage, saying it was “a sort of prostitution through a contract on paper.” He also said Urdu was “a dying language,” prompting outrage among Urdu speakers.
In 1976 Mr. Faraz became the founding director general of the Pakistan Academy of Letters. He was its chairman in 1989 and 1990. His last official job was as the chairman of National Book Foundation based in Islamabad.
Mr. Faraz advocated peace between India and Pakistan and emphasized personal bonds over geographic boundaries. He is survived by his wife and three sons.
Awarded one of Pakistan’s greatest civilian honors, the Hilal-e-Imtiaz, in 2004 for his literary achievements, he returned it in 2006 after becoming disillusioned with President Pervez Musharraf’s government.
“My conscience will not forgive me if I remained a silent spectator of the sad happenings around us,” he said at the time. “The least I can do is to let the dictatorship know where it stands in the eyes of the concerned citizens, whose fundamental rights have been usurped.”
Srinagar: Hurriyat calls for peaceful protests; curfew continues
September 1, 2008|
SRINAGAR: Curfew continued across the Kashmir valley for the ninth day Monday with the Hurriyat calling for peaceful protests but authorities treading with caution following the deal to set aside 40 hectares of land for the Amarnath shrine board to use during the pilgrimage season.There were no reports of curfew relaxation from anywhere in the valley on Monday, when the joint coordination committee of both the Hurriyat groups, headed by hardline Syed Ali Geelani and the moderate wing chief Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, has called for peaceful protests.
“The curfew restrictions would be relaxed in a phased manner at different places, but only after careful assessment about the law and order situation by the district magistrates concerned,” a state government official said. Though Sunday had started with curfew relaxations across the Valley, authorities said on Monday they were apprehensive that the separatist call might evoke a huge response. On Sunday, curfew had to be reimposed quickly in the entire old city area of Srinagar, Kulgam, Shopian, Anantnag and Kupwara districts as violent protests broke out following the agreement between the Amarnath Sangarsh Samiti and the four-member panel of the state government regarding the 40 hectares of forest land. The agreement, which led to the situation in Jammu cooling down, has been welcomed by the regional National Conference and the Congress parties here. However, the People’s Democratic Party has opposed it saying it was “unilateral and amounted to surrender before communal forces by the administration”. |
In Kashmir, Conflict’s Psychological Legacy
September 1, 2008Mental Health Cases Swell in Two Decades
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 1, 2008; A09
SRINAGAR, India
Suraya Qadeem’s brother was one of the Kashmir Valley’s brightest students. Handsome and disciplined, he had been accepted into a prestigious medical school in Mumbai. But just weeks before Tahir Hussain was to pack his bags, the 20-year-old was shot dead by Indian forces as he participated in a peaceful demonstration calling for Kashmir’s independence.
At his funeral, Suraya Qadeem, also a medical student, wept so hard she thought she might stop breathing. Seventeen years later, she spends her days counseling patients in Indian-controlled Kashmir who have painfully similar stories.
In the sunny therapy rooms of a private mental hospital here in Kashmir’s summer capital, Qadeem listens to young patients, nearly all of them children scarred by the region’s two-decade-old conflict. Most suffer from depression, chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, drug addiction and suicidal tendencies in numbers that are shockingly high, especially compared with Western countries.
Srinagar, a scenic lakeside city nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, once had among the lowest mental illness rates in the world. But in 1989, leaders of the region’s Muslim majority launched an armed separatist movement, one of several said to have been backed by predominantly Muslim Pakistan, which has fought two wars with Hindu-majority India over Kashmir since India’s partition in 1947. Srinagar became a battleground as hundreds of thousands of Indian troops quelled the uprising. The fighting has left a powerful psychological legacy.
The number of patients seeking mental health services surged at the state psychiatric hospital, from 1,700 when the unrest began to more than 100,000 now. Last year, they were treated at the hospital or the recently opened Advanced Institute of Stress and Life Style Problems, where Qadeem works.
“Every home in Kashmir has a heartbreaking history,” said Qadeem, who admits she sometimes becomes emotional during sessions. “There is terrible ache when you lose a sibling. Pills can’t help. I share that agony of loss with my clients. In Kashmiri society, this pain is everywhere.”
India’s push to keep Kashmir is taking a toll on Kashmiris as well as Indian soldiers, in ways that are harder to measure than deaths or injuries. Experts say that mental health is an invisible casualty of war and that generations will bear the scars, imperiling Kashmir’s prospects for a bright future with or without India.
The patients have insomnia, learning disabilities, anxiety disorders and what Kashmiri therapists call the “midnight-knock syndrome,” a fear stemming from the many pre-dawn raids by Indian security forces aimed at rooting out suspected insurgents.
Mental health groups estimate that 60,000 Kashmiris committed suicide last year, a record number, said Mushtaq Margoob, head of the Government Psychiatric Diseases Hospital in Srinagar.
More than 15 percent of Kashmiris are afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a recent study by Margoob. Indian troops also are suffering, undertaking long tours without their families in a place where residents are often hostile. In January, the Indian army recruited 400 psychiatrists after more than 100 soldiers, including officers, killed themselves.
Among Kashmiris, the sufferers who reach the hospital are a fraction of those who need help. Remote villages have borne the brunt of the violence, and many who live there do not have the money for the long trip.
“It’s really an epidemic in Kashmiri society,” said Margoob, who opened Qadeem’s hospital to deal with the overflow of cases. “Over decades, Kashmiri society has been stretched beyond its natural capacity to cope. Depression and anxiety can also be passed down from generation to generation.”
Part of the problem is that there is little justice, Margoob said, something that in psychological terms would be called “closure.” Human rights groups estimate that the conflict has left 77,000 people dead and as many as 10,000 missing. Women whose husbands have gone missing during the conflict are known here as “half-widows.”
Under Indian law, security forces have wide powers when operating in “disturbed” regions, including the right to shoot on sight any insurgency suspect. A Human Rights Watch‘s report last month, “Getting Away With Murder: 50 years of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act,” alleges that the law has become a tool of state abuse and discrimination.
The 500,000-member Indian force is posted in bunkers in Kashmir’s apple orchards, saffron farms and hospitals. Signs dotting villages, towns and cities read “Our ultimate aim is your well-being.”
Tensions had eased in recent years. But a crisis began in June when Muslims demonstrated over a government decision to transfer land to a Hindu shrine. They said it was a settlement plan meant to alter the region’s religious balance. After the plan was rescinded, Hindus took to the streets of Jammu city, in the predominantly Hindu part of the state of Kashmir and Jammu, demanding that it be restored.
About 40 unarmed protesters have been killed by Indian forces during the self-rule demonstrations, the largest since early 1990. The land deal reinvigorated a nonviolent movement for Kashmir’s independence, especially among the so-called children of the conflict, those younger than 35, who make up nearly 70 percent of the population.
But with an Indian-issued curfew in place, many say the tough times are back, and so are the memories. Depression often flourishes under curfew, Margoob said, with children unable to play outdoors and parents worried about their stocks of food.
Qadeem has more than 100 patients, but she is a doctor who specializes in the care of women and children, not a mental health expert. She started working at the Advanced Institute of Stress and Life Style Problems because there were only 14 practicing psychiatrists in Kashmir, a region with more than 5.7 million people. Margoob helped train her.
Among Qadeem’s typical cases is a 30-year-old widow with four children. The widow’s 13-year-old daughter is suicidal. The mother has been depressed for three years and complains of headaches and insomnia. Her husband was a teacher who got caught in crossfire. His wife and daughter saw his bloodied body lying limp on their neighborhood street.
Before the conflict, Kashmir was often featured in fairy-tale-like Hindi movies, with couples falling in love amid the saffron fields. Across from Qadeem’s clinic is where Beatles guitarist George Harrison learned to play the sitar and, it is said, where Buddha used to meditate.
But the region’s natural beauty masks a community in pain. Qadeem, a petite, energetic woman, said she sometimes feels as anxious as her patients. During the curfew last week, she was unable to see her patients.
Qadeem said her 3-year-old daughter recently asked to pet some puppies she had noticed.
“It hurt. I had to tell her it was a curfew,” Qadeem said, as the child screamed in her arms. “Before that, she asked me to take her to the nearby gardens. I also had to tell her no, because there was lots of Indian army there. Suddenly I realized that from childhood, she knows that there is danger. That is Kashmir. That is our reality.”
Afghan MP: 500 Civilian Casualties in 5-Day US Operation in Helmand
September 1, 2008The News International, September 1, 2008
By our correspondent
PESHAWAR: At least 500 civilians were killed or wounded during the five-day US-led troops’ ground and air operation in the Sangin district of Helmand province, a member of Afghanistan’s parliament said on Sunday.
“Foreign forces have been conducting operation in Sarwan Qala area of Sangin district for the last five days in which artillery and aircraft are being used,” Dad Muhammad Khan, member of Wolesi Jirga (lower house of parliament), told Afghan Islamic Press.
“The dead and injured were lying in the area and there is no one to shift the injured. Yesterday, I raised the issue in the parliament but the government has done nothing so far,” he said.
AP adds: Nato says a roadside blast in southern Afghanistan has killed one of its soldiers. A statement by the military alliance says the soldier died of wounds sustained in the roadside bombing Sunday.
Chomsky: Britain Failed To Stop US Shameful Acts
September 1, 2008Britain has failed in its duty to stop the US from committing “shameful acts” in the treatment of suspects detained during the war on terror, one of America’s most respected intellectuals Noam Chomsky warns.
In an interview with The Independent, Professor Chomsky calls on the government to use its special relationship with Washington to secure the closure of Guantanamo Bay.
The emeritus professor of linguistics said that he has heard only “twitters of protest” in the UK asking British “thinkers” to be more conspicuous in their opposition to the erosion of civil rights since the 9.11 attacks on the US.
In the wake of the invasion of Iraq, Prof Chomsky, a leading opponent of the Vietnam conflict, has been the most prominent among US intellectuals critical of the war with the Iraq and the treatment of terror suspects sent to Guantanamo Bay and other prison camps around the world.
Chomsky’s comments call into question Britain’s political and intellectual will to stand up for the rule of law in the face of actions that have been repeatedly condemned by courts on both sides of the Atlantic.
“A country,” says Chomsky, “with any shred of self-respect will be vigilant to ensure that it does not take part in this criminal savagery. Because of the “special relationship,” Britain has a particularly strong responsibility to bar these shameful crimes in any way it can. In whatever respect the relationship is “special”, the UK can use it to bar these shameful crimes.”
Asked whether Britain should be doing more to seek the closure of the Guantanamo Bay, Chomsky answered: “Definitely. I’ve seen only twitters of protest.”
Professor Chomsky believes that the case against Guantanamo needs to be made more forcefully.
“We hardly needed evidence that Gitmo was going to be a torture chamber,” clarifies Chomsky. “Otherwise, why not place “enemy combatants” in a prison in New York? The security argument is not serious. Taking a step back, does the US have the right to hold these prisoners at all? Hardly obvious. In brief, there are plenty of grounds for protest (and action), at varying levels of depth.”
His comments have met with broad support from those who have been campaigning for the British government to take a more critical position in its relationship with the Bush administration.
Clive Stafford Smith, the lawyer representing British Guantanamo detainee, Binyam Mohamed, said: “Professor Chomsky is right. To borrow from President Clinton, the world is much more impressed by the power of America’s example than the example of American power…A true friend to American would not stand by while President Bush squanders America’s birthright.”
Andrew Tyrie MP, chairman of the all party parliamentary group on rendition, said: “The UK Government’s reaction to the US program of rendition: a policy of kidnapping people and taking them to places where they may be tortured, has been inadequate, to say the least. It is scarcely credible that now, despite all we know about rendition and the UK’s involvement in it, the British Government still refuses to condemn this illegal, immoral, and counterproductive policy.”
Professor Chomsky, professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog, says that the US must now hand Guantanamo Bay back to Cuba.
“The region was taken by a ‘treaty’ that Cuba was forced to sign under military occupation. The US has been violating the terms of this outrageous treaty for decades – e.g., using it for holding Haitians who were illegally captured when they were feeling terror in Haiti. Current use also radically violates the terms of the outrageous treaty. ”
Rise of the libertarian socialist
Noam Chomsky, 79, rose to prominence in the field of linguistics during the 1950s by positing new theories on the structures of language. His naturalistic approach to the study of linguistics deeply influenced thinking in both psychology and philosophy. But it was his strident opposition to the Vietnam War which brought him to the attention of a wider American public.
Through his adherence to libertarian socialism he became a cheerleader for the dissident left in opposition to many aspects of US foreign policy. Later he described his belief as “the proper and natural extension of classical liberalism into the era of advanced industrial society”.
Professor Chomsky, who lives in Lexington, Massachusetts, has been an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq and the “war on terror”. In 2005 he was voted the leading living public intellectual in the Global Intellectuals Poll run by the magazine Prospect. His characteristic reaction to the news of his achievement was: “I don’t pay a lot of attention to polls.”
An Open Letter to God, from Michael Moore
September 1, 2008MichaelMoore.Com, Sunday, August 31, 2008
Dear God,
The other night, James Dobson’s organization asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in Denver would have to be canceled.
I see that You have answered Dr. Dobson’s prayers — except the storm You have sent to earth is not over Denver, but on its way to New Orleans! In fact, You have scheduled it to hit Louisiana at exactly the moment that George W. Bush is to deliver his speech at the Republican National Convention.
Now, heavenly Father, we all know You have a great sense of humor and impeccable timing. To send a hurricane on the third anniversary of the Katrina disaster AND right at the beginning of the Republican Convention was, at first blush, a stroke of divine irony. I don’t blame You, I know You’re angry that the Republicans tried to blame YOU for Katrina by calling it an “Act of God” — when the truth was that the hurricane itself caused few casualties in New Orleans. Over a thousand people died because of the mistakes and neglect caused by humans, not You.
Some of us tried to help after Katrina hit, while Bush ate cake with McCain and twiddled his thumbs. I closed my office in New York and sent my entire staff down to New Orleans to help. I asked people on my website to contribute to the relief effort I organized — and I ended up sending over two million dollars in donations, food, water, and supplies (collected from thousands of fans) to New Orleans while Bush’s FEMA ice trucks were still driving around Maine three weeks later.
But this past Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that the Republicans had begun making plans to possibly postpone the convention. The AP had reported that there were no shelters set up in New Orleans for this storm, and that the levee repairs have not been adequate. In other words, as the great Ronald Reagan would say, “There you go again!”
So the last thing John McCain and the Republicans needed was to have a split-screen on TVs across America: one side with Bush and McCain partying in St. Paul, and on the other side of the screen, live footage of their Republican administration screwing up once again while New Orleans drowns.
So, yes, You have scared the Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of them, and more than a few million of your followers tip their hats to You.
But now it appears that You haven’t been having just a little fun with Bush & Co. It appears that Hurricane Gustav is truly heading to New Orleans and the Gulf coast. We hear You, O Lord, loud and clear, just as we did when Rev. Falwell said You made 9/11 happen because of all those gays and abortions. We beseech You, O Merciful One, not to punish us again as Pat Robertson said You did by giving us Katrina because of America’s “wholesale slaughter of unborn children.” His sentiments were echoed by other Republicans in 2005.
So this is my plea to you: Don’t do this to Louisiana again. The Republicans got your message. They are scrambling and doing the best they can to get planes, trains and buses to New Orleans so that everyone can get out. They haven’t sent the entire Louisiana National Guard to Iraq this time — they are already patrolling the city streets. And, in a nod to I don’t know what, Bush’s head of FEMA has named a man to help manage the federal government’s response. His name is W. Michael Moore. I kid you not, heavenly Father. They have sent a man with both my name AND W’s to help save the Gulf Coast.
So please God, let the storm die out at sea. It’s done enough damage already. If you do this one favor for me, I promise not to invoke your name again. I’ll leave that to the followers of Dr. Dobson and to those gathering this week in St. Paul.
Your faithful servant and former seminarian,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com
P.S. To all of God’s fellow children who are reading this, the city of New Orleans has not yet recovered from Katrina. Please click here for a list of things you can do to help our brothers and sisters on the Gulf Coast. And, if you do live along the Gulf Coast, please take all necessary safety precautions immediately.
RIGHTS: Treaty Languishes on State Terror
September 1, 2008By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 30 (IPS) – They have vanished, but are not forgotten. Whether they have been killed or are being kept in secret, dark, and unknown prisons, their relatives, family members and human rights activists want to know.
In marking the 25th International Day of the Disappeared on Aug. 30, rights activists in a number of countries across the world are holding rallies and sit-ins to press their governments for immediate ratification of the U.N. Convention against Enforced Disappearance.
The 2006 treaty was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in December 2006. It has been signed by 73 nations, but not ratified. So far, only four countries — Albania, Argentina, Mexico and Honduras — have ratified it.
“Enforced disappearance”, according to the treaty, is the “arrest, detention, abduction by agents of the state or by persons, groups or persons acting with the authorisation, support or acquiescence of the state, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person.”
The treaty contains an absolute prohibition on forced disappearances in both peacetime and wartime, and enshrines measures such as the registration of detainees, their right of access to a court and the right to contact their lawyers and families.
Recently, the U.N. Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances reported over 41,000 pending cases across 78 countries. Since its creation in 1980, the Geneva-based group has submitted more than 50,000 individual cases to governments in more than 90 countries.
According to the London-based rights watchdog Amnesty International, the worst national statistics referred to the Working Group last year were in Sri Lanka, where 5,516 people are currently registered as disappeared, and 30 new urgent action cases were identified in relation to alleged disappearances.
The Working Group and the Day of the Disappeared started at a time of mass disappearances during authoritarian rule in Latin America. Experts on international human rights laws note that today, disappearances tend to occur in nations suffering from internal conflict.
The group has documented a number of cases. To cite an example, Jorge Alberto Rosal Paz “disappeared” in Guatemala on Aug. 12, 1983. The 28-year-old agronomist was kidnapped by armed military personnel in a jeep, while driving between Teculutan and Zacapa. He was never seen again.
When he “disappeared”, Jorge Rosal was married and had a daughter. His wife was expecting their second child. It is believed he had no political or religious affiliations. Despite reported sightings of him in detention after his kidnapping, the Guatemalan authorities denied all knowledge of what had happened.
According to Amnesty International, Jorge’s family took his case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In 2000, the Guatemalan government issued a statement acknowledging its institutional responsibility in Jorge Rosal’s case and others. In 2004, a settlement was reached between the state and Jorge Rosal’s family.
The rights group says in the past two decades, hundreds of thousands of people have become victims of enforced disappearances around the world. Their family members and friends are still left without any knowledge of their fate.
The Day of the Disappeared was started in 1983 by the Latin American non-governmental organisation FEDEFAM (Federación Latinoamericana de Asociaciones de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos) at a time when disappearances arose from authoritarian governance by military rulers.
But, as human rights researchers point out, enforced disappearances are taking place in all parts of the world. In September 2006, U.S. President George W Bush publicly acknowledged that the CIA was running prolonged incommunicado detention in secret locations. This practice has involved governments around the world.
Those being held in secret locations have no clue about where they are and what is going to happen to them. It is feared that most of them are at risk of torture and death. Bush reauthorised the programme in 2007.
After the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal in Iraq in February 2004, the Bush administration ordered a number of investigations and reviews of its detention and interrogation practices.
The leaked reports of the probe by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba and Maj. Gen. George Fay, among others, documented the existence of so-called “ghost detainees,” who were held in secret and moved around the prisons where they were being held to hide them from visits by Red Cross members.
In scrutinising the Bush policy on secret detentions, the Amnesty International identifies Pakistan as one of the chief collaborators. The rights group says that in that country there are many cases of enforced disappearances linked to the so-called U.S. war on terror.
The group also points to Iraq as another major source of concern regarding the issue of enforced disappearances. The Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) says this Saturday, family members of the disappeared will gather in Baghdad to give public testimonies of what occurred to their relatives.
“Aug. 30 is very important for the families of the disappeared,” said Mary Aileen Bacalso, the secretary-general of AFAD. “It is the day wherein the families can collectively honour their memory. It is an insistence of their moral and spiritual presence despite their physical absence.”
Events are being organised in more than 20 countries to pay respect to disappeared persons as well as to campaign for the new convention on enforced disappearances. Among those countries are Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Philippines, Nigeria, Morocco, Belarus, France, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina and Spain.
(END/2008)
Peace and Justice Post 
INDIA: Dialogue Missing as Kashmir Erupts
September 2, 2008Analysis by Praful Bidwai | Inter Press Service, Sep 2, 2008
Street clashes erupt between civilians and para-military troops in Srinagar.
Credit:Athar Parvaiz Bhat/IPS
NEW DELHI, – Even as the Jammu region of the strife-torn Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is settling down to normality and peace, a two month-old turmoil in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley shows no signs of abating.
The Kashmir unrest, which unseated the elected government of the state in July, now threatens to become a serious problem for India yet again, with international ramifications, in particular implications for India’s already fraught relations with Pakistan.
Following independence in 1947 and the partition of India, on the basis of religion, Jammu and Kashmir became disputed between Pakistan and India and three wars have been fought between the two countries for the territory’s complete possession. India’s Jammu and Kashmir state is referred to by Pakistan as “Indian-occupied Kashmir” while India refers to Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas collectively as “Pakistan-occupied Kashmir”.
India’s Jammu and Kashmir state consists of two distinct regions; Hindu-dominated Jammu and the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley. A third region, Ladakh, is largely Buddhist. Srinagar in the Kashmir Valley serves as the summer capital and Jammu town the winter capital.
Trouble began with rival Hindu and Muslim militants protesting for and against the transfer of 100 acres of land for camping arrangements to host a Hindu pilgrimage to a shrine in a cave in the Kashmir Valley, called the Amarnath Shrine, where an ice stalactite that forms for up to two months in a year, is worshipped by devout Hindus.
Political organisations in the Kashmir Valley saw the transfer as a means of placating the Hindus and as an intrusion into their autonomous cultural space.
Their protests led the state government to cancel the transfer. The Hindu-majority Jammu region reacted to this with an emotionally charged violent agitation and a blockade of goods entering the Valley along the Jammu-Srinagar highway, the only functional road connecting mainland India to the Kashmir Valley.
This blockade added to the ferocity of the protests in the Valley, and put Kashmiri separatists in their forefront. Some groups that favour merger of the Kashmir Valley with Pakistan waved the green flag of the neighbouring country.
The government of Jammu and Kashmir finally reached a settlement on Sunday with the Sri Amarnath Yatra Sangharsh Samiti (SAYSS), a coalition of different groups spearheading the agitation in Jammu, many of which are close to the pro-Hindu, nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Sunday’s settlement allows for temporary arrangements to be made for makeshift tents and other facilities during the pilgrimage, without a change in the ownership and status of or title to the land.
Following the agreement, the agitation in Jammu was formally withdrawn. But that has had very little impact on the Kashmir Valley, where the government re-imposed a curfew after thousands of people took to the streets in its Northern towns.
While many Kashmiri parties have not yet reacted to the agreement, the People’s Democratic Party, which ran a coalition government with the Congress party in Jammu and Kashmir for nearly six years, condemned it as a “unilateralist” and “authoritarian” move, made without consulting the Valley’s politicians.
Some other political leaders from the Valley termed the settlement “irrelevant” to resolving the larger Kashmir question of autonomy and freedom in keeping with the sentiments of the people.
“The ease with which the settlement was reached, without substantially changing the status quo, and with only minor concessions being offered to the SAYSS, shows that the agitation was politically motivated in the first place,” says Kamal Mitra Chenoy, a political scientist at Jawaharlal Nehru University here, who has been involved with reconciliation and peace efforts in Jammu and Kashmir for many years.
“The BJP was fishing in the troubled waters in Kashmir with an eye on the legislative assembly elections, which are due by the end of the year, but are likely to be postponed,’’ said Chenoy. ‘’The organisations it controls in Jammu used deplorably rough methods to enforce a traffic blockade of the Valley, including attacking truck drivers with rocks and acid bulbs. Its methods drew an adverse reaction from the rest of India, which is one reason why it withdrew the agitation. But it has succeeded in polarising Jammu and Kashmir along regional and communal lines.”
One indication of this is the growing alienation of the Valley’s people from India and the pro-separatist mood now prevalent there. The Kashmir situation was repeatedly mishandled by New Delhi through its appointee, Jammu and Kashmir Governor N.N. Vohra and his administration.
The administration first failed to anticipate the protests, and then cracked down heavily on them. Many Kashmiris complain that the government handled the Jammu agitation with kid gloves, but used excessive force in the Valley to suppress even peaceful protests: “rubber bullets in Jammu, and live bullets in the Valley”.
The government relented in the Valley during much of August, as it proceeded to break the blockade in Jammu. However, since Aug. 24, it has resorted to a crackdown, arrests of prominent leaders, and repeated curfew.
“This has resulted in heightening the alienation of ordinary Kashmiris from the Indian state,” says Yusuf Tarigami, a Jammu and Kashmir lawmaker from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), and a widely respected political leader. “Mercifully, that alienation is not as severe as in the early 1990s, and may yet prove transient.”
Tarigami cites a number of differences between the post-1989 climate and the present situation. Then, a number of militant groups, including the largely indigenous Hizbul Mujaheedin, were hyperactive in demanding “freedom” and Kashmir’s separation from India.
These militant groups managed and subdued the relatively moderate political leadership of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference. Pakistan armed and financed the militant groups and lent them logistical support. Savage repression unleashed by Indian security forces only helped them build a support base in the Valley.
Today, militant groups are no longer able to recruit cadres. Until the anti-land transfer protests broke out, the Kashmir Valley was relatively peaceful and the extremists were isolated. Issues of governance and day-to-day survival became dominant. Tourism experienced a boom.
The Hurriyat was even on the verge of deciding not to issue a call to boycott the assembly elections, as it usually does.
“Above all, Kashmir has not been a live political issue in Pakistan since the peace process with India made progress,” says Karachi-based social activist and political analyst Karamat Ali. “It hasn’t figured in the domestic political debate at all since the February elections and later developments, including Pervez Musharraf’s resignation as president.”
This offers a chance for India to begin a serious dialogue with the different separatist political currents in Kashmir and put the issue of autonomy up-front on the table.
But the Indian establishment appears divided on the issue. Hardliners such as National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan play down the serious nature of Kashmiri alienation and popular discontent with the domineering presence of Indian security forces in the Valley. Narayanan told a television channel, two days ago that he expected the Kashmir situation to become normal in 10 days’ time.
However, another section of the government has advised Governor Vohra to explore the possibility of a dialogue with separatist leaders and Vohra has been contacting them since Sunday.
“Eventually,” says Chenoy, “a viable solution to the Kashmir problem will have to be found in the kind of suggestions for regional and interregional autonomy made 10 years ago by an official committee chaired by Balraj Puri, and through a strengthening of the special status for Kashmir guaranteed by a particular section (Article 370) of the Indian Constitution. This must be accompanied by a thinning out of the presence of Indian security forces in the Valley, and devolution of power to local and regional bodies.”
Jammu and Kashmir is the only state in India which enjoys special autonomy under Article 370, according to which, laws enacted by Indian parliament, except those concerning defence, communication and foreign policy, is inapplicable unless ratified by the state legislature.
But Chenoy emphasises that “in the short run, there is no substitute for a dialogue. That alone can build the necessary confidence and goodwill, which India so badly needs’’.
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