Pakistan: New civil war looming over the rehabilitation of the Swat displaced, Islamic Society, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Society

Pakistan: New civil war looming over the rehabilitation of the Swat displaced

Pakistan faces a new crisis

By G Parthasarathy

Thursday, June 11, 2009

As more and more displaced people pour into refugee camps, Pakistan’s resources are being strained. It has appealed to the UN and donor countries for urgent financial aid. But more important than the economic implications of the refugee influx is the political fallout of the military operations. It is now clear that fearing the spread of Talibanisation, major provinces like Sind and Punjab are refusing refuge and rehabilitation facilities for Pakhtuns fleeing the impact of the Army’s operations.

In the Sind province, Sindhi nationalist organisations have joined the main Muhajir political party, the MQM, which is now a coalition partner in the Provincial Government, in warning that they will not accept displaced Pakhtuns. The MQM has warned that any influx of refugees into Karachi could lead to ethnic violence. Even before these developments, ethnic clashes between Muhajirs and Pakhtuns had rocked Karachi.

The attitude of the largest province of Pakistan, Punjab has, however shocked many Pashtuns. According to one of Pakistan’s most respected journalists, Rahimullah Yusufzai, even the Punjab Government, which is headed by Mr Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has let it be known that it would not provide facilities for camps for internally displaced people in the province and that camps should be set up within the NWFP for this purpose.

http://newageislam.com/pakistan--new-civil-war-looming-over-the-rehabilitation-of-the-swat-displaced-/islamic-society/d/1460

Uncertain future as Pakistan goes broke, Islam and the West,

Islam and the West

Wounded Sovereignty: Uncertain future as Pakistan goes broke

Uncertain future as Pakistan goes broke

By G Parthasarathy

In these circumstances, the 'Friends of Pakistan' will use their economic leverage to see that Pakistan moves in the direction of ending support for terrorist groups and dealing with pro-Taliban groups operating across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. It is in this background that one has to assess the rather shady role being played by America's British allies, who are preaching virtual defeatism and surrender in Afghanistan through both their military commander and Ambassador. The British quite evidently have no stomach for further casualties. Over the past two years they have played a duplicitous role in establishing secret contacts with the Taliban behind the back of President Hamid Karzai, who has reacted with rage, expelling a British national who was involved in clandestinely transferring money to the Taliban and by pre-empting a British ploy to get Lord Paddy Ashdown, who had earned notoriety in Bosnia and is said to have had MI 6 links in his short career as a diplomat, as a UN High Representative to Afghanistan.

http://newageislam.com/wounded-sovereignty--uncertain-future-as-pakistan-goes-broke--/islam-and-the-west/d/940

India-Iran: Let us not communalise the relationship, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

India-Iran: Let us not communalise the relationship

We Have Shared Interests

By G Parthasarathy

21 July 2008

Eyebrows have been raised about Iran's clandestine nuclear cooperation with Pakistan, at a time when it vociferously advocates that nuclear sanctions should not be ended against countries like India, which have not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. On the economic side, there are complaints about Iran being an unreliable partner. Unlike Qatar, which has scrupulously adhered to the terms of a long-term contract for supplying LNG, Iran unilaterally repudiated a $22 billion agreement it signed with India in August 2006, for supplying five million tons of LNG annually, demanding that higher prices should be paid.

There is also the case of Iran not abiding by earlier commitments to buy iron ore from Kudremukh in Karnataka. Thus, commercial deals with Iran have to be carefully negotiated to ensure that it does not wriggle out of its commitments.

Despite these misgivings, India-Iran ties have immense strategic importance. Both countries have a common interest in opposing Taliban-style Wahhabi extremism in Afghanistan. For years, the two countries, together with Russia, backed the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. They have extended extensive economic assistance to the Karzai government. Iran extended support, including promises of rescue help, to the America-led ouster of the Taliban and thereafter at the Bonn Conference, which led to the installation of Hamid Karzai as Afghanistan's president.

http://newageislam.com/india-iran--let-us-not-communalise-the-relationship/current-affairs/d/280

Terrible price of Pakistan's jihad, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Terrible price of Pakistan's jihad

By G Parthasarathy

The roots of the present US-Pakistan tensions lie in the alliance which was forged by the Reagan Administration with Gen Zia ul Haq in the 1980s, under which Zia and the ISI received virtually unlimited military and economic assistance to bleed and oust Soviet forces from Afghanistan. With no accounting or accountability, the ISI used the aid thus provided to arm and train rabidly fundamentalist forces both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. Gen Zia's strategic aim was to create "a pro-Pakistan Islamic Government in Kabul to be followed by the Islamisation of Central Asia. In military parlance, this was Pakistan's strategy to secure 'strategic depth' in relation to India".

This strategy found use when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan and jihadis from groups like the Harkat-ul Mujahideen and the Jaish-e-Mohammed were trained in Afghanistan, with its rulers aiding and abetting the hijackers of IC 814 in 1999. Shuja Nawaz has revealed that he was told by the then ISI Chief Lt Gen Ziauddin that when the ISI approached the Taliban 'President' Mullah Mohammad Rabbani in 1999, asking for 20,000 to 30,000 volunteers to wage jihad in Jammu & Kashmir, Rabbani smilingly said he was willing to offer even half-a-million Afghan jihadis for this job.

http://newageislam.com/terrible-price-of-pakistan-s-jihad-/war-on-terror/d/307