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Gen. Zia's use of Islam for political purposes was meant partly to drum up support for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, and partly to create terror and render the populace incapable of protest against oppression. This is what the Taliban are also doing. They have in the past deliberately videotaped such punishments and circulated the footage. In March 2007 Taliban in Khyber Agency publicly stoned and then shot dead a woman and two men on charges of adultery. They videotaped the shooting and circulated it — footage even the most sensationalist channel would think twice about broadcasting. The 'Swat flogging video' is an aberration only in that the local media broadcast it. One reason for the broadcast (conspiracy theories aside) was that the footage, while horrific, involved no blood or limbs being lopped off. -- Beena Sarwar URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1324 ----------------------------- Vigilantes, the state and that flogging thing Beena Sarwar The first casualty of war may be truth but the first casualty of any 'religious militancy' is women's rights. In the now famous 'flogging video' — undated footage shot with a cell phone in Swat (judging by the language and clothes) — a man whips a woman in red lying face down on the ground, pinned down by two men, encircled by a crowd of other men. It is painful to watch the leather strap thwack down on her buttocks as she cries out in pain. There is much obscene in this image, not least the man holding down her arms, squatting so that her burqa-covered hea d is practically forced between his thighs. The video, circulated on the Internet before local television channels broadcast it, caused a furore in Pakistan and internationally. What caused the outrage? The public punishment meted out to a woman — or the fact that it was broadcast? Those who helped make the incident public, including the man who told television channel Dawn News that he made the video, and an anthropologist- filmmaker with NGO links are under threat for their part in what many term a 'drama' staged to give 'a bad name' to Pakistan and to Islam. Political forces and local residents join this chorus, terming the broadcast a bid to sabotage the peace deal. The Taliban claim that the woman who was really flogged was accused of fornicating with her father in law, and that small boys meted out the punishment (that is, to humiliate rather than hurt). The woman in the video, whose face is never visible, was accused of 'adultery'— after allegedly being in the company of a na-mehram (unrelated) man — who was also flogged. Her subsequent denial of the flogging before a magistrate may reflect the intimidation she faces. The point is, someone was flogged, and it wasn't the first time that the Taliban meted out such a public punishment. All this diverts from the real issues. For one thing, such punishments have been and legally can be meted out to women in Pakistan, thanks to Gen. Zia-ul Haq's controversial Hudood laws. Political dissidents and journalists have felt the lash on their backs. So have some women — a few in prison and at least one publicly in Bahawalpur. Since Zia's time, the state has not administered this punishment — but two decades after his departure, vigilantes trying to establish their writ are following that path. And last but not least, the flogging was only part of the all-pervasive issue of violence against women that already exists in the region. Women across South Asia are verbally and physically abused every minute of the day, every day of the year. If there are 'honour killings' in Pakistan, there are 'dowry deaths' and female foeticide in India. According to the 2008 annual report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), at least 1,210 women were killed during 2008, including at least 612 in so-called "honour killings" and at least 185 over domestic issues. Such violence is made all the more pervasive by the widely accepted tradition that family members can punish (although this is not always mandatory) — although not usually in public — females who transgress their code of honour. The Taliban's public violence goes against this code. It also overshadows 'private' gender violence, like swara (giving away women in order to end a conflict), stove burnings and beatings. The first casualty of war may be truth but the first casualty of any 'religious militancy' (Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish or whatever) is women's rights. During the Zia years, American and Pakistani intelligence agencies boosted this tendency when they re-invented the Afghan war of liberation against Soviet occupation as a religious war. The Mujahideen's launching pads against the Soviets in Pakistan's tribal areas are sanctuaries for their successors, the Taliban. The drug trade used to finance the war contributed to growing lawlessness, worsened by the influx of weapons. Sectarian violence escalated when the 'jihad' boomeranged after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan. The suicide bombing in Chakwal recently is just the latest such attack on Shi'a places of worship. The Taliban's treatment of women, including their ban on female education while in power in Afghanistan (please note, before American drone attacks) takes further Zia's obsession with controlling women's morality and public behaviour. They have destroyed hundreds of girls' schools, besides targeting teachers and non-government organisations (NGOs) attempting to provide health and education facilities in the area. Such NGOs have been under attack since before 9/11. Remember the summer of 2001, when Taliban attacked NGO offices in the tribal areas. The tragic murder in Mansehra of three women and their driver working for an NGO focusing on education on April 6 comes barely a year after an armed attack, also in Mansehra, in February 2008, when a dozen gunmen burst into the office of an organisation focusing on children and rehabilitation work since the 2005 earthquake. Their indiscriminate fire left four employees dead. Those terming the video 'fake' argue that no one who was really flogged would be able to sit at all, the girl sat up then walk on her own feet as the girl in the video did as she was led away. However, psychiatrists say that in "no one who was actually flogged would be able to do that." Many beg to differ. "If I was whipped in front of a crowd of men, I would be so eager to get away from them that I would have run," says Faiza, a lawyer friend in Karachi. Psychiatrists agree, noting that in emotionally highly charged situations, the body functions at a higher metabolic level to overcome physical pain. "The need to escape from her tormentors and the crowd around her would momentarily take precedence over the pain," explains eminent psychiatrist Dr. Haroon Ahmed. Nasir Zaidi, one of the four journalists who were whipped during the early days of the Zia regime says, "it is entirely possible. We were whipped with a proper 'hunter' — not a leather strap, and walked away. So did a young boy who was flogged before us. We did not want them to see our weakness." Hadd punishments (amputation, flogging, stoning to death) imposed on Pakistan by Gen. Zia in the name of religion have witness requirements so strict that they can practically never be met. These laws made adultery (sex between consenting adults) a criminal offence and rape a private one, punishable by flogging or stoning to death. Earlier, under the Pakistan Penal Code, adultery was a private offence, compoundable and bailable, punishable by five years or a fine, or both. The state could not be a party to prosecuting adultery. In 1981, the Federal Shariat Court pronounced that stoning to death was not even an Islamic punishment (PLD 1981 FSC 145 Hazoor Baksh). Gen. Zia had the bench changed. The new bench upheld the punishment. Islamic scholars like Dr. Mohammad Farooq Khan of Mardan term the Hudood laws "the biggest insult to Islam." The Council of Islamic Ideology has found them to be flawed and inconsistent with the teachings of Islam (CII Report, 2006). Gen. Zia's use of Islam for political purposes was meant partly to drum up support for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, and partly to create terror and render the populace incapable of protest against oppression. This is what the Taliban are also doing. They have in the past deliberately videotaped such punishments and circulated the footage. In March 2007 Taliban in Khyber Agency publicly stoned and then shot dead a woman and two men on charges of adultery. They videotaped the shooting and circulated it — footage even the most sensationalist channel would think twice about broadcasting. The 'Swat flogging video' is an aberration only in that the local media broadcast it. One reason for the broadcast (conspiracy theories aside) was that the footage, while horrific, involved no blood or limbs being lopped off. There have been other incidents of public executions of men and women in the region. In September 2007, the beheaded bodies of two women kidnapped in Bannu were found with a note in Pashto warning that all women "involved in immoral activities" would meet the same fate — like Shabana, the dancer in Mingora who was shot dead. One reason for the Pakistani state's apparent paralysis is that the armed forces and large sections of the population think of this as America's war, compared to the previous Afghan war with its religious trappings. In fact, that was less 'our war' than the current one, which threatens the very existence of the Pakistani state. Source: The Hindu, New Delhi (Beena Sarwar is an independent journalist and a documentary filmmaker based in Karachi.) URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1324
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| Radical Islamism & Jihad | | 14 Apr 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com |
| | Tackling "Islamic" Terrorism in Af-Pak region |
| | One of the major problems is that the Americans, in search of quick policy options, are considering opening negotiations with a section of the Taliban described, for the sake of expediency, as 'moderate' Taliban or 'good' Taliban. Should this happen, this would amount to a strategic defeat for the US, as it would be negotiating with weaker adversaries from a position of weakness, having failed to militarily defeat them. Pakistan, by being truculent and duplicitous with its main benefactor, will have achieved its strategic ambitions. If that were to happen, India would be the biggest geo-strategic loser in the Hindu Kush region. -- Vikram Sood URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1323 ------------------------------------- Uncomprehending in 'AfPak' By Vikram Sood Former Secretary, R&AW; Vice President, ORF Centre for International Affairs Of the last thirty turbulent years, Afghanistan has seen active Soviet (Russian) involvement for about ten, US for about 18 years (in two spells), India for about ten (in two spells up to 1992 and presently) and the Pakistanis for all three decades. The Soviets used 10 million landmines, caused 200,000 civilian fatalities and left behind 750,000 amputees, while a majority of the mines have still not been cleared. By 2001 about 8.26 million Afghans had fled to other countries, mostly to Pakistan, of whom some 4.64 million had already been (principally forcibly) repatriated to Afghanistan by that year. The Americans sponsored the jihad, with help principally from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, in the 1980s and later dropped 1,228 cluster bombs between October 2001 and March 2002, which released 248,056 'bomblets' of which 12,400 are estimated to be lying around unexploded. Yet, Osama bin Laden has not been found, while American legitimacy has plummeted. The Pakistanis gave Afghanistan the gift of the Taliban and all that this has signified, from the destruction of the Bamian Buddhas, religious obscurantism of the worst kind, the spread of narcotics, and endless misery on both sides of the Durand Line. India contributed a billion dollars of humanitarian aid focused on national capacity-building and today, according to recent ABC opinion polls, 74 per cent of Afghans see India favourably, while 91 per cent see Pakistan unfavourably (up 11 points from last year) and 86 per cent see Pakistan as playing a negative role in their country. And yet, the US, in a reflection of its incongruent policies, continues to be solicitous about assuaging Pakistan's 'sensitivities'. There was a time when US diplomats were interceding on Pakistan's behalf to reduce India's role in Afghanistan; even today, there are voices in Washington that seek to diminish India's role in Afghan reconstruction. It is a measure of Pakistan's brittle state that four Indian consulates, manned by not more than two dozen men, are a source of 'insecurity' to that country. It is also a measure of the imbalance of US policy that seeks to eliminate virtually the only success story in Afghanistan. The Taliban are estimated to have achieved a permanent presence in 72 per cent of Afghanistan, up from 54 per cent last year, according to the International Council on Security and Development. These figures may be open to interpretation, but the general drift is not in question. The fact however is that the manner and speed of the takeover only suggests that unless the Taliban are stopped, rolled back and defeated, they will eventually secure themselves in the entire country. This will happen, not because the Taliban are popular in Afghanistan – they are not – but because the opposition to their depredations is neither cohesive nor sufficiently strong. As Andrew Cordesman says in his study, "The Afghan-Pakistan Conflict: US Strategic Options in Afghanistan" – the Afghan Pak war "has been a war that the US has allowed to slip from apparent victory into serious crisis." One of the major problems is that the Americans, in search of quick policy options, are considering opening negotiations with a section of the Taliban described, for the sake of expediency, as 'moderate' Taliban or 'good' Taliban. Should this happen, this would amount to a strategic defeat for the US, as it would be negotiating with weaker adversaries from a position of weakness, having failed to militarily defeat them. Pakistan, by being truculent and duplicitous with its main benefactor, will have achieved its strategic ambitions. If that were to happen, India would be the biggest geo-strategic loser in the Hindu Kush region. The situation that prevails is the result of mismanaged wars fought since October 7, 2001, when the Americans went in with their cordite swatters, which only allowed the flies to escape in all directions. Nothing at all was tied up with the Pakistanis to prevent this from happening; in fact, the Americans assisted General Musharraf in allowing him to have his Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Army and irregular contingents, active in Afghanistan, airlifted back to safety and deniability in Pakistan. From then on, to the premature diversion to Iraq followed by a general downgrading of the Afghanistan theatre, a situation has been allowed to evolve that shows the trends in all security and socio-economic development parameters in Afghanistan to be adverse. Kabul is more and more like the Green Zone of Baghdad. Only the northern road through the Salang Tunnel to Panjshir and Mazar-e-Sharif is considered safe; the one to Kandahar through Wardak is unsafe for Afghans and foreigners, barely 30 kilometres outside Kabul; the road to the Bagram Air Base is frequently attacked by the Taliban. NATO forces may be able to defeat the Taliban in individual battles, but they are not able to hold territory, much less clear, build and develop. Counter insurgent forces may be able to win any number of battles but for the insurgent it is enough to be able to survive. No wonder, Jim Jones, the NSC Adviser, said in 2008, "Make no mistake. NATO is not winning in Afghanistan." This was echoed by Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, in his testimony to the House Armed Forces Committee in September 2008: "I am not convinced we are winning it (the war) in Afghanistan." There are several problems in tackling the evolving situation in Afghanistan. Firstly, the troop/insurgent ratio is adverse and there is very little likelihood that this can improve in the near future. Secondly, sanctuaries in Pakistan extend not only to the Al Qaeda but to the various Taliban shuras (councils) from Quetta to Swat. There is the Afghan Shura of Mullah Omar in Quetta; the Waziristan Shura of Baitullah Mehsud; and the Swat Shura of Maulana Fazlullah. More such shuras will be formed in the future. Besides there are still some important holdouts from the first Afghan jihad, such as Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani; the former was a Taliban commander north of Kabul and is generally considered the father of suicide bombing. Father and son have created a force that includes several thousand Pakistan fighters, probably from the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). Another is Gulbuddin Hikmetyar and his Hizb-e-Islami, a long-time favourite of the ISI, who operates in eastern Afghanistan from his bases in FATA. The other and major difficulty has been the Pakistani ambivalence in its dealings with the Taliban. As the creator of the force, it is difficult for the Pakistan establishment to see it destroyed without achieving its primary objectives in Afghanistan. Pakistan has consistently undermined US efforts in Afghanistan. The unintended consequence has been the growing Talibanisation of Pakistan and the actual ceding of territory and sovereignty to the radical Islamists west of the Indus. The Swat peace deal was dubiously easy, and it is difficult to accept that the provincial Awami National Party (ANP) Government in Peshawar would go ahead with such a significant move without approval from Islamabad. It is possible that the Pakistan Army wanted a way out of having to fight the Pushtuns and at the same time create a 'moderate' Taliban for the US. Conventional wisdom would suggest that this too will rebound on Islamabad and the US. The essential reality is that both – the Taliban and the jihadis on one side and the Pakistan Army, have the same slogan — jihad fi'sbillah – jihad in the name of Allah. They claim they are fighting for the same Allah, the same Prophet; so how does one expect any resounding victory? As was expected, the Obama administration has set out a new policy for Afghanistan-Pakistan. But is it 'new' when it talks of the threat from Al Qaeda and does not mention the Taliban? The Obama AfPak policy is no different from that of George Bush, who spoke only of the threat to America from Al Qaeda. Obama made it quite clear in his reply to The Times of India correspondent at the recent London G-20 Summit, when he said, "we are very concerned about the terrorists and extremists who have made camp in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan." The question had been specific – "What is America doing to help India tackle terrorism emanating from Pakistan?" The evasiveness and the irrelevance of the response only reassert known American positions. No help would be forthcoming from America for India. On the other hand there has been a serious effort in the US to manufacture consent for the new slogan "Anyone who is against terrorists is with us" instead of the earlier slogan "Either you are with us or against us." In essence they both mean the same thing – America is with no-one; the rest have to decide for themselves if they want to take on America's declared fanatics or their own. The policy lays down two essential priorities – one, to secure Afghanistan's south and east against the Al Qaeda; and two, to strengthen the Afghan forces so that this would enable the US to wind down its own combat operations. The Obama policy speaks of the Taliban in the context of the Al Qaeda with the Mullah Omar group as the irreconcilable lot, implying that the rest may be reconcilable, 'moderate' or 'good'. It defies logic that a 'moderate extremist' exists; and if he does happen to survive, could he wield any real power that would deliver results? Such a person would, most probably, be outside the corridors of extremist power and would necessarily fail to deliver. An extremist has to be defeated because he considers anything else, including development and dialogue, as appeasement or a just reward for his extremism. The fact that the new policy stresses on tackling Al Qaeda and not the Taliban only creates the impression that the policy is tactical and not strategic, as it does not seem to define how the Taliban, who wield considerable influence in over 70 per cent of Afghan territory, will be handled. The policy against the Al Qaeda demands a counter terrorist operation against non-Pakistanis; while the policy against the Taliban requires counter-insurgency operations against groups that include the Pakistani Taliban as well. The US AfPak policy document concludes by saying that, in the year 2009-2010, the Taliban's momentum must be reversed, but only in Afghanistan, and that the international community must work with Pakistan to disrupt the threats to security along Pakistan's western borders. The Americans are once again going to miss the essential point, which is that, if there has to be an AfPak policy, there must be a consistent and unambiguous Al Qaeda-Taliban policy that includes tackling LeT and others like the JeM, who are the jihad's Rapid Deployment Forces, available on demand for Pakistan's western or eastern frontiers. The American problem has been that it is unable or unwilling to recognise the source of the problem. The problem is Pakistan's unwillingness and therefore its inability to help and, equally, the US unwillingness to force the issue with the Pakistanis, who even today are playing for time. Should the Pakistani assessment be that the US is looking for short term solutions to long term problems, they are likely to be more intransigent and more demanding, knowing that they only have to wait it out. Another crucial aspect that the US must consider is that, while it does have the capacity to unilaterally destroy some countries, it no longer has the capacity to reconstruct single-handedly. It would, therefore, need the assistance of regional powers and will have to accommodate their regional interests. In AfPak, the regional powers are Iran, Russia, India and China. The US must also readjust to the fact that Pakistan is part of the problem and not the solution. US intervention in Afghanistan serves Indian interests only if it takes into account Pakistani delinquency. As a long-term solution, the regional powers will have to think of the guaranteed neutrality of Afghanistan. This will be possible only after Pakistan has been disciplined through more sticks and far fewer carrots. If the neglect of Afghanistan and Pakistan by the US in the 1990s was a mistake, the present policy of pampering Pakistan is no better. References in the US to getting India and Pakistan to talk in order to give Pakistan 'adequate confidence', can be attributed to the usual flawed American thinking and need not detract from India's main concern to prevent a Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. For this, it would be useful for the US to offer aid funding via India, to run projects in Afghanistan, which would provide a far better rate of utilisation of funds than is presently the case, and would keep the anti-American sentiment out of the equation. It has been a bloody thirty year war in Afghanistan, during which the essentially tribal and conservative society, especially the Pushtun, has now acquired a thick layer of religious extremism. There has to be a long-haul solution spread over generations, with development and dialogue following, and not preceding, the military process. Since it is in India's interest, as that of the rest of the world – with the exception of Pakistan – that the Taliban be rolled back, it is, perhaps, in Indian and American interests that the two countries co-operate across the board, and not on the basis of my terrorist first and your terrorist later. India also needs to reach out to Iran and the Central Asian Republics and not just concentrate on dealing through the United States. Source: South Asia Terrorism Portal, South Asia Intelligence Review [Sair], Weekly Assessments & Briefings, Volume 7, No. 40, April 13, 2009 URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1323 |
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