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Undeclared curfew imposed in occupied Kashmir

November 24, 2008
The News International, Nov 23, 2008
SRINAGAR: The authorities in occupied Kashmir have been continuing to keep the Chairman of All Parties Hurriyet Conference (APHC), Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and other Hurriyet leaders including Maulana Abbas Ansari, Agha Syed Hassan Al-Moosvi, Fazl Haq Qureshi and Bar President, Mian Abdul Qayoom under house arrest and resorting to strict measures to thwart the March towards Ganderbal.

According to Kashmir Media Service, the call for the March has been given by the Jammu and Kashmir Coordination Committee on the occasion of holding of 2nd phase of shame polls by the occupation authorities in six constituencies of Ganderbal and Rajouri districts.

Except these constituencies, undeclared curfew has been imposed in the entire Kashmir Valley and roads leading to Ganderbal have been sealed.

Heavy deployment has been made in Srinagar and other major towns of the Valley. All roads leading to Ganderbal have been sealed with barbed and razor wires and barricades.

The police and paramilitary personnel have been forcing people to remain indoor and patrolling the deserted streets to foil any attempt by Kashmiri people to assemble for the march.

In view of strict restrictions imposed by the authorities and a general strike called by the Coordination Committee, all shops and business establishments are closed.

The residents complained that security personnel are not allowing them to come out of their houses.

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Guest Columnists Warn Obama About Escalating in Afghanistan

November 24, 2008

Out of the frying pan into the fire? In today’s New York Times, three columnists — including a guy named Rumsfeld — warn that a “surge” in Afghanistan could last decades and/or not even be worth it or make matters worse, while our economy collapses.

By Greg Mitchell | Editor & Publisher

NEW YORK (November 23, 2008) — (Commentary) Out of the frying pan into the fire? In his race for the White House, Barack Obama called long and often for sending many more troops to Afghanistan (even before we withdraw quite a few from Iraq). It was a required thing to say on the campaign trail to show toughness and also to make the politically winning point that President Bush had fought the wrong war, in Iraq, when we had not yet cleaned out Afghanistan.

Did he really mean it? If so, is it really the right thing to do, especially with our chief national security threat now coming from within – in the form of our economic crisis?

The New York Times today presents a host of op-eds on Iraq and Afghanistan, including one from a guy named Rumsfeld and another from someone called Chalabi. The ones related to the Afghan conflict should raise questions for readers, and I hope, the Obama team. Just this morning, the Karzai government revealed that Obama had called the nation’s leader and pledged to increase U.S. support. The NATO commander wants to nearly double troop strength there.

This past August, I devoted a column here to this subject after a brief flurry of front-page articles on Afghanistan arrived to mark U.S. deaths there finally hitting the 500 mark. The war in Afghanistan, long overlooked, is now getting more notice, I observed, before asking: “But does that mean the U.S., finally starting (perhaps) to dig out of Iraq, should now commit to another open-ended war, even for a good cause, not so far away?”

Nearly everyone in the media, and on the political stage, still calls this the “good war.” Obama has even said “we must win” there. But it’s the same question we have faced in Iraq: What does he define as “winning”? How much are we willing to expend (in lives lost and money) at a time of a severe budget crunch and overstretched military? Shouldn’t the native forces — and NATO — be doing more? And what about Pakistan? And so on.

We’ve been fighting there even longer than in Iraq, if that seems possible. Now do want to jump out of a frying pan into that fire in an open-ended way?

Few voices in the mainstream media – and even in the liberal blogosphere – have tackled this subject, partly because of long arguing for the need to fight the “good war” as opposed to the “bad war.” But now some very respected commentators – with impeccable pro-military credentials – are starting to sound off on the dangers.

Back in August, I was reduced to quoting Thomas Friedman from a recent New York Times column: “The main reason we are losing in Afghanistan is not because there are too few American soldiers, but because there are not enough Afghans ready to fight and die for the kind of government we want….Obama needs to ask himself honestly: ‘Am I for sending more troops to Afghanistan because I really think we can win there, because I really think that that will bring an end to terrorism, or am I just doing it because to get elected in America, post-9/11, I have to be for winning some war?'”

And I reprinted at length comments from Joseph L. Galloway, the legendary war reporter, based largely on a recent paper written by Gen. Barry McCaffrey after his tour of the war zone. McCaffrey had said “we can’t shoot our way out of Afghanistan, and the two or three or more American combat brigades proposed by the two putative nominees for president are irrelevant.” Galloway noted sardonically: “We can’t afford to fail in Afghanistan, the general says, but he doesn’t address the question of whether we can afford to succeed there, either.”

Now the New York Times today presents several cautionary views. Here are three of them, hardly a group of lefty peaceniks.

Continued  >>

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Israeli army brass advocate timely war on Iran

November 24, 2008

The Global Research, Nov 23, 2008

Press TV

An Israeli security assessment has recommended devising contingency plans to attack Iran even if it means courting a conflict with the US.

The leaked paper drawn up by Israeli military chiefs maintains that Tel Aviv has a ‘limited’ window of opportunity to act against Iran before the country obtains a nuclear weapon, claiming that in 2009, Israel might have to face a nuclear Iran ‘alone’.

Senior Israeli officials had earlier expressed concern that an Obama administration might lead up to the restoration of Washington-Tehran relations.

President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to begin direct and unconditional talks with top Iranian officials on the country’s long-disputed nuclear program.

Israel alleges that Iran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has plans ‘to build a nuclear weapon’. Under the allegation, Israeli officials have long argued that the use of military force is a legitimate option in retarding the country’s nuclear progress.

Iran denies the Israeli claim, insisting that the country’s nuclear activities are solely directed at the civilian applications of the technology.

The Israeli army assessment claims ‘Iran’s threat to Israel’s survival’ is at the top of the list of challenges facing Tel Aviv and recommends close cooperation with the US to prevent a Washington-Tehran rapprochement.

According to the assessment, Israel must therefore draw up a plan for military action against Iran, in case other countries show reluctance to counter the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

The paper is to be presented to the cabinet next month as part of the National Security Council’s annual situation assessment, Haaretz reported.

This comes as outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrived in Washington on Sunday for talks with US President George W. Bush.

During his three-day stay, Olmert is expected to attempt to make President Bush pledge to counter the Iranian nuclear program.

Earlier in November, an unnamed senior European Union diplomat said that the bloc is concerned that ‘a possible Israeli strike against Iran is not completely off the radar’.

The official suggested that the perfect time for Israel to strike Iranian nuclear installations ‘is between now and January 20’ — when US President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

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Pakistanis fear U.S. collision with neighboring enemies

November 24, 2008

Kashmiri Muslims waiting to cast their votes in Ganderbal, Pakistan, in the outskirts of Srinagar, Sunday. (Tauseef Mustafa/Agence France-Presse)

MEMO FROM ISLAMABAD | International Herald Tribune, Nov 23, 2008

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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: A redrawn map of South Asia has been making the rounds among Pakistani elites. It shows their country truncated, reduced to an elongated sliver of land with the big bulk of India to the east, and an enlarged Afghanistan to the west.

That the map was first circulated as a theoretical exercise in some American neoconservative circles matters little here. It has fueled a belief among Pakistanis, including members of the armed forces, that what the United States really wants is the breakup of Pakistan, the only Muslim country with nuclear arms.

“One of the biggest fears of the Pakistani military planners is the collaboration between India and Afghanistan to destroy Pakistan,” said a senior Pakistani government official involved in strategic planning, who insisted on anonymity as per diplomatic custom. “Some people feel the United States is colluding in this.”

That notion may strike Americans as strange coming from an ally of 50 years. But as the incoming Obama administration tries to coax greater cooperation from Pakistan in the fight against militancy, it can hardly be ignored.

This is a country where years of weak governance have left ample room for conspiracy theories of every kind. But like much such thinking anywhere, what is said frequently reveals the tender spots of a nation’s psyche. Educated Pakistanis sometimes say that they are paranoid, but add that they believe they have good reason.

Pakistan, a 61-year-old country marbled by ethnic fault lines, is a collection of just four provinces, which often seem to have little in common. Virtually every one of its borders, drawn almost arbitrarily in the last gasps of the British Empire, is disputed with its neighbors, not least Pakistan’s bitter and much larger rival, India.

These facts and the insecurities that flow from them inform many of Pakistan’s disagreements with the United States, including differences over the need to rein in militancy in the form of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The new democratically elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, has visited the United States twice since assuming power three months ago. He has been generous in his praise of the Bush administration. But that stance is criticized at home as fawning and wins him little popularity among a steadfastly anti-American public.

So how will the promise by President-elect Barack Obama for a new start between the United States and Pakistan be received here? How can it be begun?

One possibility could be some effort to ease Pakistani anxieties, even as the United States demands more from Pakistan. That will probably mean a regional approach to what, it is increasingly apparent, are regional problems. There, Pakistani and American interests may coincide.

American military commanders, including General David Petraeus, have started to argue forcefully that the solution to the conflict in Afghanistan, where the American war effort looks increasingly uncertain, must involve a wide array of neighbors.

Obama has said much the same. Several times in his campaign, he laid out the crux of his thinking. Reducing tensions between Pakistan and India would allow Pakistan to focus on the real threat — the Qaeda and Taliban militants who are tearing at the very fabric of the country.

“If Pakistan can look towards the east with confidence, it will be less likely to believe its interests are best advanced through cooperation with the Taliban,” Obama wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine last year.

But such an approach faces sizable obstacles, the biggest being the conflict over Kashmir. The Himalayan border area has been disputed since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, and remains divided between them.

Pakistan’s army and intelligence agencies have long fought a proxy war with India by sponsoring militant groups to terrorize the Indian-administered part of the territory.

After the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan reined in those militants for a time, but this year the militants have renewed their incursions. Talks between the sides made some progress in recent years but have petered out.

Pakistanis warn that the United States should not appear too eager to mediate. First, they caution, India has always regarded Kashmir as a bilateral question. India, they note, also faces a general election early next year, an inappropriate moment to push such an explosive issue.

Second, some Pakistanis are concerned about the reliability of the United States as a fair mediator. “Given the United States’ record on the Palestinian issue, where the Palestinians had to move 10 times backwards and the Israelis moved the goal posts, the same could happen here,” said Zubair Khan, a former commerce minister who has watched Kashmir closely.

Continued  >>

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POLITICS-INDIA: Separatists Battle Moderates in Kashmir Polls

November 24, 2008


By Athar Parvaiz |  Inter Press Service


SRINAGAR, Nov 23 (IPS) – India’s Jammu and Kashmir state votes Sunday for the second round of staggered, seven-phase, provincial elections that have pitted separatists against mainstream political parties.

The voting follows violence on Saturday in Baramulla town, 55 km north of Srinagar, where police shot dead two young men participating in demonstrations to promote a separatist-sponsored boycott of the polls.

Separatist political parties have been appealing for a boycott of any electoral exercise until there is a resolution of the Kashmir issue, whereas mainstream political parties are encouraging people to participate in the formation of a government that can negotiate a political settlement.

“More than the government formation these elections are seen as an open contest between the mainstream politicians and separatists who stand locked against each other over the issue of participation or nonparticipation,’’ noted political commentator Mohammad Sayeed Malik told IPS.

“These elections have two strands; one is the wider one involving politics surrounding the Kashmir issue, and the other involves a struggle for power wherein mainstream political parties are contesting for government formation,” he added.

Several separatist political leaders who were running anti-election campaigns have been detained by the government. These leaders include Shabir Shah, Yasin Malik, Nayeem Khan, Ghulam Nabi Sumji and others. Apex separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq were repeatedly put under house arrest and there have been frequent curfews to thwart anti-election programmes.

While most separatist leaders favour independence from India, some advocate merger with Muslim Pakistan. Separatist politicians and militant groups are opposed to the polls because they believe that elections could strengthen India’s claim over the Muslim-majority territory.

Lying dormant for years, separatism received a shot in the arm about three months ago through a controversial land transfer by the government to a Hindu shrine, triggering regional and communal clashes in the state and revived the freedom movement in Kashmir.

In July, the state was put under direct central rule after the elected government collapsed over the land row amidst mass street demonstrations and clashes with security forces that left some 50 people dead.

Elections were announced in the immediate aftermath of this controversy, though after considerable dithering. Many voices cautioned against holding elections in the state at a time when it was reeling under regional clashes and a renewed freedom sentiment.

In the end, India’s Election Commission, which has a reputation for fairness, went ahead and announced a schedule for the Nov. 17 – Dec. 26 exercise.

It was expected that the polling percentage would be low given the complex setting in the state and the repeated calls for a boycott of the elections. However, the first phase on Nov. 17, covering the three constituencies of Bandipore, Sumbal and Gurez, showed an impressive 65 percent voter turnout.

“This is mainly because the space for mainstream political parties has been increasing ever since the 2002 assembly elections,” says Sayeed Malik. “Political discourse in Kashmir has changed after those elections. Presently there are many common points between the mainstream and separatist politics — both regard Kashmir as a dispute though they have their varied perspectives on it.”

The mainstream political parties in Kashmir are now openly advocating for the resolution of Kashmir issue and maintain that they are only participating in the elections for governance. “We are simply contesting elections for governance; Kashmir issue needs a resolution and the separatists are fighting for that,’’ says former chief minister of the state Farooq Abdullah.

Abdullah’s National Conference (NC), which has ruled the state for about three decades, has unveiled an exhaustive manifesto. “It is for the first time that the NC has come out with an elaborate election manifesto or vision document in which the party talks about the need for the resolution of Kashmir issue through its greater autonomy formulation,’’ says Gul Mohammad Wani who teaches political science in Kashmir University.

“However, in the vision document much space has been given to development and governance issues probably for separating conflict-resolution from governance.”

The other main political party in the state, People’s Democratic Party (PDP), has also come out with an election manifesto in which it has talked about issues ranging from self-rule to the concept of a loose sovereignty and the need for development in the state.

“Broadly speaking, the regional political parties have sharply positioned themselves on several important and critical issues facing the state ranging from good governance to conflict resolution,’’ says Wani.

According to him parties like the NC and PDP have enough stakes in these elections. “NC lost power to the PDP and Congress [combine] in the 2002 elections after ruling the state over decades. So it would be keen to get back to the seat of power. Should it fail to do so, it faces the danger of disintegration,” Wani told IPS.

“Similarly, the PDP, which is a nascent political party and fancies itself as a viable alternative to the NC, badly needs to perform better in these elections for its political survival,” Wani said.

Wani says that the stakes are even higher for the Congress which is a pan-India party. “Congress’s victory or defeat in Kashmir is likely to influence its performance in the parliamentary elections in India next year. So the party is fairly cautious and has, in its election manifesto, not gone beyond the need for decentralisation of power and overall development in the state.”

Smaller parties, apart from laying focus on a resolution of Kashmir issue, have emphasised the need for relaxation of the live border with Pakistani Kashmir, setting up of a commission for disappeared persons and building a consensus in India regarding the Kashmir issue.

The stakes for Kashmiri separatist leadership are also high. “More than anything else, the separatist leadership has its political legitimacy and reputation at stake. They badly need good response from people about their election boycott calls; should people ignore their appeals, it would be quite precarious and embarrassing for them,’’ says political analyst Noor Ahmad Baba who teaches in Kashmir University.

Till the other day, the equation was tilted in favour of the separatists, but after the good turnout of voters in the first phase it looks as if people may participate with enthusiasm in the remaining phases as well.

“It would not be fair to criticise the separatists if people come out to vote. After all, they were not allowed to campaign against the elections and most of them have been put behind bars under false pretences,’’ said human rights activist Showkat Sheikh.

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Activists Seek Executive Order Banning Torture

November 20, 2008

NEW YORK – Shutting down the infamous detention centre at Guantanamo Bay is just one of a series of measures to reform U.S. counterterrorism practices being urged by the watchdog organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW).

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In a report released Sunday, the New York-based HRW urged President-elect Barack Obama to quickly repudiate the abusive policies put in place by the George W. Bush administration in its “global war on terror”.”The Obama administration is going to have a difficult task to restore America’s standing in the world,” Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism programme director at HRW, told IPS. “The Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies deeply damaged the reputation of the United States.”

HRW’s 11-step action plan — entitled “Fighting Terrorism Fairly and Effectively: Recommendations for President-elect Obama” — suggests how the U.S. could again become a credible leader in the fight for the global implementation of human rights.

“But it depends on how dramatically the Obama administration makes a clear break with the past,” Mariner added.

According to HRW, some 250 terrorist suspects are still being held as “enemy combatants” at the military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay opened in 2002. Most of the detainees have now been in custody for nearly seven years, without charge.

As president, Obama should close the detention facility — a step he has already pledged to take — and establish a task force to review all the detainees’ cases to determine whether they should be charged and brought to trial or released.

Also among the 11 steps is the abolition of military commissions to try suspected foreign terrorists. HRW argues that these commissions lack “basic fair trial guarantees” and that federal criminal courts were the “best-equipped” and “time tested” venues to handle terrorism cases.

Similarly, plans to legalise the indefinite preventive detention of suspected terrorists – based on “predictions of future dangerousness” — should be rejected by Obama, HRW says.

Justifying detention without charge by classifying people as “enemy combatants” in the “war on terror”, as has happened to suspects arrested in locations like Bosnia, Thailand and along the U.S.-Mexico border, should also be stopped.

HRW also condemned the use of torture and inhumane interrogation techniques by U.S. armed forces and intelligence agencies — “including stripping detainees naked, subjecting them to extremes of heat, cold, and noise, and depriving them of sleep for long periods”.

To ban these practices, which have led to the deaths of some detainees, Obama should quickly issue an executive order and repudiate legal memos issued by the Bush Justice Department and presidential directives under the outgoing administration that permit torture and other abuses.

HRW called on the new administration to redress victims of abusive counterterrorism policies — something which has not happened so far as the victims have effectively been shut out of U.S. courts.

Above all, past abuses should be investigated, documented and publicly reported by a non-partisan commission with subpoena power, and former government officials who were responsible for some of the crimes should not be given immunity from prosecution, the group said.

Last week, Rep. Rush Holt, a Democrat from New Jersey who chairs an intelligence oversight panel, issued a statement saying that “while an executive order [to ban torture] will not remove the need for legislation on the issue,” if Obama did so, it would “begin to restore our moral leadership on the issue”.

Holt also expressed support for the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), a coalition of religious groups from all over the country that is lobbying to eliminate the use of torture as a part of U.S. policy.

On Nov. 12, NRCAT held a nationwide action day with more than 50 delegations of religious leaders holding meetings with members of Congress. Thirty religious groups participated in a demonstration in front of the White House, where President Bush is spending his final days in office.

While she agreed on the need to fight terrorism, Mariner of HRW rejected many of the measures taken after the 9/11 terror attacks, emphasising that “the Bush administration entirely disregarded even basic principles of the rule of law.”

“The government addressed terrorism in an extremely counterproductive way,” Mariner said.

Instead of diminishing the terrorist threat, reports of human rights violations at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere fuelled the recruitment of supporters for militant groups, which argued the U.S. was in fact leading a “war on Islam”.

Asked whether she believes Obama will heed the recommendations of HRW, Mariner stressed that by voting against the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to authorise trials by military courts, “Obama has already stood up against these abuses.”

The president-elect also explicitly pledged to close Guantanamo during his campaign.

“So we are confident that consistent with his message of change, his actions and his criticism, he is going to repudiate the abusive counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration,” Mariner said.

© 2008 Inter Press Service

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Moderation in the Pursuit of Justice Is No Virtue

November 20, 2008

With two months still to go before his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama and his transition team are already getting off on the wrong foot, signaling that they have no intention of investigating anyone in the Bush administration for possible war crimes.

What we’re talking about here is the torture of detained terrorist suspects in American custody in a grotesque violation of both our treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions and our historic principles as a democratic nation.

By their own machinations and attempts to redefine and pervert both treaties and our own laws, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington and any number of lesser suspects sought to shield themselves from, or put themselves above, justice.

They did so knowing full well that what they were doing — clearing the way for interrogators at Guantanamo and in the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret dungeons around the world to do anything it took, short of murder, to extract information from terror suspects.

The “harsh interrogation methods” included water-boarding, stripping and humiliating prisoners, subjecting them to extremes of temperature, putting them into stressful physical positions for hours, the use of psychotropic drugs and doubtless other equally uncivilized practices.

Water boarding has always been treated as a criminal act in this country. Military officers were court-martialed at the turn of the last century for water boarding Filipino guerrillas. More recently, an East Texas sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for water boarding a suspect and extracting a confession from him.

Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue, and its no way to begin an administration that was elected on promises of change. What it says is that if you’re one of the elite and powerful, your violations of the law will be overlooked, no matter how much damage you did to our country’s standing in the world.

What signal does it send to Mr. Bush’s gang of unindicted co-conspirators, who’ve unwrapped a Pandora’s boxful of other offenses — from perverting the administration of justice, to illegally eavesdropping on the phone conversations and e-mails of ordinary Americans, to salting the stream of intelligence with bogus material, to inviting their cronies to loot the Treasury with no-bid military contracts, to lying under oath to congressional oversight committees, to applying political litmus tests to the hiring of civil service employees to the wholesale destruction of White House e-mails and records? Etcetera. Etcetera.

This nation was founded on the principle of equal justice under the law. No one — no one — ought to be able to skate or hold a get-out-of-jail-free card by virtue of having been the most powerful felon in the land, or of working for him.

This signal on torture investigations says that Sen. Obama wants to start his administration as a uniter, not a divider, trying to untangle the unholy mess that the Decider and Co. are leaving behind them in the economy, in our military, in virtually every walk of our national life. It speaks to his desire to reach across the aisle to the defeated Republicans and try to bring them back into the fold as Americans.

That’s all well and good, but not if it comes at the cost of lifting the blindfold off Justice’s eyes and letting her pick and choose who’ll pay for criminal acts and who won’t. That’s no way to begin, and no way to continue.

Out in West Texas, crusty old ranchers plagued by coyotes killing their calves and baby sheep shoot the offending beasts and hang their carcasses on the nearest barbed wire fence as an object lesson to the rest of the pack.

Unless the newly empowered Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill hang a few coyotes on some fences in Washington, D.C., they’re making a huge mistake that will come back to haunt them, and all the rest of us, too.

Unless the truth, the whole truth, is unearthed, justice is done and the Republican closet is emptied of festering transgressions, the next pack will do it again, secure in the knowledge that their positions will protect them from the penalties that more ordinary citizens must pay for the same crimes.

The people of this nation have spoken loudly. They voted to throw the rascals out. They voted for a different way of governing, a different way of law making. They voted for equal rights under the law.

If their desires aren’t satisfied — if the new broom sweeps no cleaner than the old one — the next time around they may move things up a notch and throw all the bastards out — and they’d be fully justified in doing so.

© Copyright 2008, The McClatchy Washington Bureau

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Terror Indian Poll in Kashmir: A Vote for Independence

November 19, 2008

Dr Abdur Ruff Colachal, Nov 19, 2008

The larger world is quite unimpressed by the Indian polls in Kashmir by keeping the terror military threat more active. Unlike the great powers around, Kashmiris could be easily fooled by India and its agents in and around country by keeping them under its terror control and feeding false promise of freedom and development and also democracy to them. But Kashmiris have voted for both re-independence and development and they have hinted they would not like to antagonize India after achieving freedom from hegemonic India.

In view of prevailing mood of the Kashmiris seeking complete re-independence from occupier India, Indian poll action in JK on Nov 17 does not reflect the realities, though India keeps asking the USA and other powers to take note of the changing realities to accommodate its concerns. The state elections are being staggered over seven phases to allow authorities to mount a huge security operation to contain the freedom movement’s anti-poll campaign. In the first stage of elections, voting has been held in ten of the 87 state assembly segments.

India used force against the anti-poll campaign by the freedom leaders and tries to reduce the impact of the freedom struggle started form the Muzaffarabad March where several freedom strugglers including a major leader were killed by Indian terror forces. Indian agencies have made the poll possible as it feared international shame if polls are not held. Indian media is focused on the very conduct of polls. Turnout in the 10 seats contested across Jammu and Kashmir state was above average, but as expected by India. More surprising perhaps was a turnout of 59 percent in three seats contested in the Kashmir Valley, up from around 55 percent in the same seats in 2002. Previous elections have seen freedom fighters threatening violence to enforce their call for a boycott, and Indian soldiers trying to coerce people to vote. This time the freedom fighters did not resort to anti-state terror measures and said they would not interfere.

On the eve of the polls, the Indian government arrested and tortured freedom leaders and activists and terrorized the Kashmiris to vote. By conducting polls against the will and wishes of the freedom loving people and the freedom fighters by police and military threats, India has in fact killed democracy in Kashmir. The freedom fighters resisted from counter-force and the polls were “thus peaceful”. Four freedom activists and two army men were killed in two separate encounters on poll day in the State while another soldier was abducted after a gunfight in Poonch.

However surprising the turnout in Bandipora, voters in this picturesque Township insist their vote should not be misconstrued as “the vote against the movement”. Not just voters but the contestants also sought to reiterate that they did not seek vote in favour of any ideology but “exclusively for development. At least 42 people were shot dead by police when hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims took to the streets this year shouting “Azadi” (freedom).

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the people are yearning for revival of the golden era of governance that the state had witnessed under the stewardship of Mufti Sayeed between 2002 and 2005. PDP says the people have decided to teach the National Conference, a pro-Hindutva party, a lesson for the power-hungry politics of deceit practiced by the party over the years and they came out in large number yesterday to do so

State Terror and Violations

Human rights and poll monitor groups are not spared by the forces. Those who had gone to monitor the “freeness and fairness of polls” are behind the bars. Prominent human rights activist Parvez Imroz, the president of Coalition of Civil Societies, was beaten and arrested by police at Bandipora. Bar association struck its work in high court and other courts here in protest against the beating and arrest of Imroz. That apart – the man has been of late been in news for his Coalition’s interest in monitoring elections in Jammu and Kashmir and India has been focused on his torture and silence.

Important here is the history of detentions that Imroz has faced in the past. Since 2002, J&K CCS has been monitoring elections in the state. Their 2002 Assembly election report and later the 2004 parliamentary election report was not taken well by the powers-that-be because it contained several references to how the police and the Army had coerced people to vote. Significantly, the coalition even lost one of its volunteers during the 2004 elections when the vehicle, in which she was traveling, was targeted in a mine blast. Kurram Pervez lost his leg in the accident. He had to get it amputated. The leader of human rights campaign in the valley, he has long been espousing the cause of the voiceless especially those killed in custody and those who disappeared over the past several years of conflict in the valley. Very recently, Imroz’s house was under attack from people who are yet to be identified and punished.

They voted for Re-independence

Independence is a separate issue from the need for a better life, which a good administration can provide. While it is too early to draw firm conclusions from Monday’s first stage in a seven-part election across a very diverse state, the turnout in parts of the mainly Muslim Kashmir Valley was a surprise for separatists who had heatedly called for a boycott. This year has seen some of the biggest anti-India protests in the Kashmir Valley since an insurgency began in 1989, but a 70-year-old man said they wanted to cast their ballots even though they had taken part in protest marches

A good turnout at the start of Indian Kashmir state elections may mean freedom fighters don’t want to cause death to Kashmir by Indian terror forces under guise of tackling the opposition by the ‘separatists’. In fact of late freedom leaders showed inclination for Kashmir development while gaining freedom back from India. However, talk of democracy is something neither Kashmiris nor Indians know for sure. For Kashmiris it is state terrorism that is shown to them as democracy. An effective poll mechanism of promising life and development of Kashmir along with pressure tactics have brought a lot people to vote for a new government, but they say in voice that they don’t vote for India.

If Hindu-terrorists are harassed by the state, the Hindutva forces come to their rescue. Breaking his silence over the Maharashtra anti-terror squad (ATS) probing the September 29 Malegaon bomb blasts that killed six persons, Lok Sabha Opposition leader LK Advani on 17Nov expressed “shock and outrage” over the way Sadhvi Pragya was “physically and psychologically tortured and abused in obscene language by her interrogators.” Advani should not realize the way the Muslims of India and Kashmir are being ill-treated by Indian forces and jail authorities. This is main reason how Kashmir poll was peaceful so far.

Illegal Indian Polls

Current Indian poll in JK is ilegal and immoral. The chairmen of Hurriyat factions, senior freedom leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said that the sanctity of elections have been lost in presence of 7 lakhs troops. Reacting to the statement of authorities that 55 per cent people voted in first phase of election, Geelani said that the claim of free and fair elections ‘is a sheer joke’. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference which had called for a boycott, questioned the official figures and said free and fair voting was impossible in the presence of hundreds of thousands of troops. But more mainstream political parties appeared to have won some listeners by arguing that the need to choose good government that can build roads and improve civic amenities would not necessarily undermine the independence movement. Many voters said they still wanted independence as firmly as ever, but experts said a successful election across Kashmir would give the state and central government the chance to offer better governance and defuse the independence movement to some extent.

Some Observations

One does not clearly know if the current governor Vohra has difference of opinion over the poll show when he met the big bosses in New Delhi recently, but as an appointed agent of New Delhi as governor of JK, he still continues to work for Indian case in JK by ensuring the poll at any cost by using the terror forces taking positions street by street.  It was a common knowledge that the occupying Indians would go all about presenting a pro-India image for the watching world and with the waste resources wasted on poll machinations in JK, the task would not have been a total flop given a sort of neutral posture adopted by the freedom leaders. But the trend would fast change.

US president-elect Obama’s passion for a free Kashmir must have given the Kashmiris and their freedom leaders a fresh boost in pursuing their goals in non-confrontational manner. But, the unexpected turnout in 10 assembly constituencies that went to polls on Monday has given a boost to the pro-India so-called “mainstream” parties. Each party in JK wants to claim some credit for the polls. They believe massive participation of people will set a trend for the rest of the polling, especially in Srinagar and will give a confidence to candidates as well as voters. That is the joke being played out by New Delhi’s strategists, quit tragically, if not pathetically.

Does it all mean that India would not surrender sovereignty back to Kashmir in a peaceful manner? Does it mean Kashmir is permanently under Indian brute control? As a mark of support for Kashmir vote for re-independence, six mini trucks carrying goods from Pakistani Kashmir crossed the border in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir.

However, it is quite clear that Kashmiris have voted not for Indian terrorist-rule in Kashmir, but, on the contrary, to get rid of India oppression and gain freedom. Kashmiris have showcased their strength once again in making the vote as a declaration for gaining independence from India. India should read the message quite correctly and not to day-dream about keeping JK under its terror custody forever!

Kashmir Freedom seems to be fast approaching!

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The end of Israel as a Jewish state?

November 19, 2008


By Anthony Loewenstein | Axis of Logic, Nov 15, 2008

The vast majority of Israeli citizens oppose the settler movement. Despite this, the colonialists recently launched a campaign to lure Israelis to visit the West Bank, the Jewish Forward newspaper reported. “Some 1,000 billboards have gone up across the country, showing photographs of cherubic settler children dressed in biblical costumes and carrying the slogan ‘Judea and Samaria – the story of every Jew’.”

The gulf between a sizable, vocal and often violent minority and the vast bulk of the population is growing by the day. Just last month a handful of Jewish radicals rioted near the West Bank town of Kiryat Arba and desecrated a Muslim graveyard after the Israel Defence Forces removed an illegal outpost.

Such actions are now occurring many times every week and the Israeli government seems powerless or unwilling to act decisively against it. Fundamentalist Zionists no longer recognise the authority of the Jewish state and demand the establishment of a Taliban-style, rabbinical entity in its place. Arabs will either be forcibly removed or live under authoritarianism.

How did Israel get to this point? Decades of funding and indulging the settler movement have resulted in the current crisis. As Gideon Levy writes in Haaretz: “Every class and institution of Israeli society defends the settlements, finances them from its own pockets, and is a full partner in the [land] theft, even if some of them are disgusted by it.”

The West Bank has become a Hobbesian land. Barely a day goes by without yet another report of settlers and the IDF impeding the daily lives of Palestinians on the “disputed” land.

In the 15 years since the Oslo peace talks, the colonies have multiplied in size and the settlers have more than doubled in number. A two-state solution is now impossible due to the presence of over 400,000 Jewish settlers on Palestinian land. A World Bank report recently revealed that property prices in the West Bank have rocketed out of the reach of most local businesses.

The September pipe bombing by Jewish radicals of Israeli historian Ze’ev Sternhell’s home in Jerusalem – a long-time critic of the settler movement – signalled a profound shift in the struggle against Israel’s internal enemies, a point powerfully made by leading peace activist Uri Avnery. “Israeli fascism is alive and kicking”, Avnery warned. “It is growing in the flowerbed that produced the various religious-nationalist underground groups of the past.” And yet the vast majority of the international Jewish Diaspora is tellingly silent on these issues, preferring to protest against Hamas “terrorism” and Iranian “provocation”. Thankfully Haaretz is unafraid to editorialise on the failure of Israel to uphold its own laws when broken.

Sternhell, even more determined to warn the world against the Jewish state’s threats, has argued since the attack against him and his family that “If Israeli society is unable to muster the courage necessary to put an end to the settlements, the settlements will put an end to the state of the Jews and will turn it into a bi-national state”.

As a believer in this solution, I don’t fear Sternhell’s thesis, but settler violence undoubtedly threatens the (long-discredited) claim that Israel is a Jewish democracy.

The challenge for the international community is to pressure Israel to decide what kind of state it wants to be and enforce its borders. Only a nation where all citizens are treated equally should be acceptable and the ever-growing tensions in cities where Jews and Arabs uncomfortably co-exist is worsening.

Ironically, before Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently resigned, he told a leading Israeli newspaper that the country must withdraw from the vast majority of occupied territory. They were fighting words from a disgraced leader and unlikely to be heeded any time soon.

The UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied territories reported last month that Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and, until 2005, the Gaza Strip represented elements of colonialism and apartheid. Despite the current truce between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights found that 68 children had been killed in Gaza in the 12 months to June this year because of “disproportionate and excessive lethal force” by the IDF.

The settler militants are one of the leading impediments to peace in the region yet much of the mainstream media and Zionist leadership remain in denial. The Jerusalem Post editorialised last month that “radical” settlers were “undermining the case for Jewish rights in the West Bank… and harden hearts to Israel’s legitimate security concerns and historic civilisational ties to the land.” International law is clear: every settlement beyond the 1967 Green Line is illegal and must be removed. There can be no lasting peace and justice without this.

It was a point equally ignored by one of America’s leading Zionist leaders, Morton Klein, who wrote recently that, “it is simply a flat-earth statement to describe Judea, Samaria and Gaza as occupied”.

His statement is categorically incorrect though represents the official position of the vocal international Zionist Diaspora: the rampaging settlers, land annexation and anti-Palestinian discrimination is a merely defensive position by Israel. The forthcoming election may set back prospects for peace even further.

The time is approaching soon when the world will recognise what has been clear for decades: the Jewish state has neither the interest nor desire to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. The alternative is now inevitable: the end of Israel as a Jewish entity.

http://antonyloewenstein.com/blog/2008/11/07/the-end-of-israel-as-a-jewish-state/

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Posted in Commentary, Human rights, Palestine, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »

Guantanamo: How many children were held?

November 19, 2008

rinf.com, Nov 18, 2008

The ACLU raises the issue of government lying about the number of children detained at Guantanamo.This follows a release last week on incontrovertible evidence that the Pentagon was distorting the number of children held. It appears that virtually no claim made by US authorities regarding detention and interrogation operations is reliable:

Pentagon Admits Number of Guantánamo’s Children is Higher than Originally Disclosed

An AP article today announced the Pentagon has admitted that 12 children under the age of 18 have been held at Guantánamo since it opened in 2002. The news report comes on the heels of a study released last week by the U.C. Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, showing that the U.S. has held at least 12 juveniles at Guantánamo.

These reports confirm what the ACLU has been saying for months: the U.S. government has been lowballing the number of children it has imprisoned at Guantánamo. In a submission to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child in May, the U.S. claimed that eight juveniles have ever been held at the detention camp and only two prisoners currently at Guantánamo were children at the time of their transfer to the prison. Yet in an ACLU report we issued that same month, Soldiers of Misfortune, we said that prisoner lists released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests show the number is closer to 23, while some sources estimate the number of youth held at Guantánamo as high as 60.

At a U.N. review session in Geneva, the ACLU also pointed out that the U.S. had failed to count a third prisoner currently at Guantánamo, Mohammed El-Gharani (also known as Muhammed Al-Qarani), who was only 14 when first captured and has reportedly attempted suicide several times while in custody at Guantánamo. U.N. officials of the Committee on the Rights of the Child demanded that U.S. officials explain why discrepancies in the figures of child detainees may exist, pointing out that the U.S. had failed to count El-Gharani. The government delegation’s inadequate answer? It’s tough to determine the number of teens we’ve detained at the Navy base.

In July, the ACLU renewed calls for the U.S. to release accurate numbers for the children imprisoned at Guantánamo, after an attorney for the U.K. non-profit Reprieve said testimonies collected by the NGO, which represents 30 inmates at Guantánamo, indicate the actual number is much higher than 22.

As the number of children whom the U.S. owns up to detaining climbs higher, it is becoming crystal clear that there is no transparency in the government’s Guantánamo detention practices. And as the U.S. government’s past miscalculations of child prisoner statistics are revealed, it proves that there is a profound lack of accountability for Guantánamo policies, even when children are concerned.

Sadly, this is not the first time the Bush administration has misled a human rights body and deflected public and institutional scrutiny to avoid full accountability for its Guantánamo policies. But it is not too late to correct past wrongs: Delay the upcoming trials of two of the remaining detainees who have been held since they were juveniles and assess their eligibility for rehabilitation and reintegration into society. As alleged former child soldiers, the two detainees (Omar Khadr, who was captured when he was 15, and Mohamed Jawad, who was captured when he was 16 or 17), should be treated first and foremost as candidates for rehabilitation and reintegration into society, not subjected to further victimization.

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