Reuters
SARAJEVO (Reuters) - About 1,000 Turkish students have left home to attend university in Bosnia, attracted by the low cost of living, good food and -- for women -- the right to wear an Islamic headscarf.
On Monday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan officially opened a new campus of the International University of Sarajevo (IUS) on the outskirts of the Bosnian capital.
"I hope that a cultural bridge will be created at this university that will connect the people and secure peace in the Balkans," he said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Erdogan heads an Islamist-rooted government and his wife wears a headscarf. However, Turkey remains a secular state and women are forbidden to wear headscarves at university there.
In Bosnia no such ban exists, and this is among the reasons that young Turks give for making the relatively short journey to study at one of Sarajevo's three international universities, two of which are Turkish-funded.
Food and finances, close to the hearts of students everywhere, are important to Sarajevo's Turkish students.
"There are a lot of mosques and the food is delicious," said Enes Cici from Istanbul, an engineering student at the IUS. "It's very similar to our own culture."
Economics student Mehmed Guner from Bursa said: "It is more affordable to study here than going to the United States, Canada or any European country, so this was what made me pick it."
Other reasons are peculiar to Turkey, founded in 1923 from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire which once ruled Bosnia. Turkey's military and judiciary now guard its secularism.
"I came here because of a scarf problem," said architecture student Cahide Nur Cunuk, explaining that she could not enroll at any state or private university in Turkey after graduating from an Islamic theological high school.
"We are happy to be here," added her colleague Vildan Mengi. "Bosnians are Muslims and they are similar to us."
RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS
A relatively large proportion of the Turkish students in Sarajevo are women, and most wear headscarves.
They say they cannot enroll at universities in Turkey as they have graduated from theological high schools, the only schools where they could attend classes wearing headscarves.
Many young Turks from religious families attend Islamic secondary schools where 40 percent of the syllabus is devoted to religious subjects, but the rest is for secular topics.
Erdogan was product of this system. A revised system of university credits introduced in the late 1990s has made it hard for pupils of such schools to study non-religious subjects at Turkish universities.
"If the situation in Turkey changed, we would not come to study here," said one woman in a group of headscarved students sitting in a university tea shop. "Bosnian people are more tolerant than Turkish people," she said.
Vildan Mengi said she had three sisters who would also come to Sarajevo if the scarf problem were not resolved. "My mother came to see me here. She saw I am safe," she said.
The IUS is the largest of the three universities that are building what might become the largest complex of private colleges in the region. The other Turkish-funded college is the International Burch University (IBU).
While the IUS was set up by a group of Turkish businessmen and public figures and their Bosnian counterparts, the IBU's founder is the Istanbul-based Foundation of Journalists and Writers, established among others by Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen.
Followers of Gulen, who has pursued a view that Muslims should not reject modernity but embrace business and the professions, have created a network of private schools and universities across Turkey, the central Asia and the Balkans.
Gulen now lives in self-imposed exile in the United States.
The third university, whose new building in emerging only a few hundred meters away, is the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, accredited by the British-based Buckingham University.
UNIQUE SITUATION
"This is unique situation to have two Turkish-funded universities in the same area," said IBU Secretary-General Orhan Hadzagic. "This was a pure coincidence," he added, explaining that universities were not linked in any other way.
Bosnia, which like most other Balkan countries had been part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries, has close ties with Turkey. Bosnian Muslims are known as moderate Muslims of Slavic origin, who have turned to the religion in greater numbers only since the 1992-95 war, during which they were the main victims.
Erdogan said at a public debate earlier on Monday: "It does not matter whether we have a shared border or not, I feel this country as the closest neighbor and we will never abandon Bosnia because of our historic responsibility."
The sight of bulldozers and the noise of construction and drilling machines at the foot of nearby Mountain Igman is in stark contrast to many building sites in the capital, where work has stopped since last year because of the recession.
The total investment, estimated roughly at more than 100 million euros ($135 million) once it is completed, would turn Sarajevo into a regional university center and create new revenues for the city, officials say.
"The city of Sarajevo will earn about 35 million euros annually only from the university, which is a large profit," said Alija Rizvanbegovic, one of the founders of the IUS. "We expect that about 600 jobs will be created in the next five years."
(Editing by David Stamp)
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Somali refugees recruited to fight Islamist militia
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 6, 2010; A07
The Washington Post
DADAAB, KENYA - The U.S.-backed government of Somalia and its Kenyan allies have recruited hundreds of Somali refugees, including children, to fight in a war against al-Shabab, an Islamist militia linked to al-Qaeda, according to former recruits, their relatives and community leaders.
Many of the recruits were taken from the sprawling Dadaab refugee camps in northeastern Kenya, which borders Somalia. Somali government recruiters and Kenyan soldiers came to the camps late last year, promising refugees as much as $600 a month to join a force advertised as supported by the United Nations or the United States, the former recruits and their families said.
"They have stolen my son from me," said Noor Muhamed, 70, a paraplegic refugee whose son Abdi was recruited.
Across this region, children and young men are vanishing. All sides in Somalia's conflict are recruiting refugees to fight in a remote battleground in the global war on terrorism from which they fled, community leaders say.
It is unclear whether recruiting by the governments of Kenya and Somalia is ongoing. But their military officers continue to train refugees at a heavily guarded base near the northern Kenyan town of Isiolo as the Somali government prepares for a long-planned offensive against the Shabab.
A second camp is in Manyani, a training station for the Kenya Wildlife Service in southern Kenya, according to former recruits, relatives, community leaders and U.N. investigators.
"They told us we were going to Somalia soon," said Hassan Farah, 23, who escaped from the Isiolo camp last month.
Farah, who was injured in a 2008 bombing in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, first spent more than two months at Manyani. "I saw 12-year-old children at the camp," said Farah, who has a jagged scar on his left arm. He escaped by bribing a water truck driver to sneak him out.
The Kenyan government has acknowledged that it is helping train police officers for Somalia's weak interim government but said that the recruits were flown in from Mogadishu. "No one is recruited from the refugee camps," said Alfred Mutua, a Kenyan government spokesman.
But a recent U.N. report on Somalia confirmed the recruitment of refugees, including underage youths, for military training. Kenya's training program, the report said, is a violation of a U.N. arms embargo, which requires nations to get permission from the U.N. Security Council before assisting Somalia's security efforts.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the U.N. special representative to Somalia, said he has not personally seen evidence to act on. "If this recruiting is happening, we have to condemn it," he said.
Recruiting refugees is a violation of international law, and enlisting children under 15 constitutes war crimes, human rights groups say.
"They told me I would become a soldier and fight the Shabab," said Ahmed Barre, a bone-thin 15-year-old whose family fled Somalia's anarchy in 1991, when the central government collapsed. He was born in Dadaab's camps and has never been to Somalia. "I didn't want to go. But I was jobless. I wanted to help my family."
A State Department spokesman, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said, "We strongly condemn recruitment in the refugee camps by any party." Senior U.S. officials, he added, "have stressed" to top Kenyan and Somali government officials "the need to prevent any recruitment in refugee camps."
Human Rights Watch has also raised concerns about the force, which numbers roughly 2,500.
Once the recruits signed up, their cellphones and identification cards were taken. They never saw the promised money. And they were denied access to their traumatized families, which, fearing deportation, seldom complained to the authorities, local officials and recruits said.
"These people ran away for their dear lives to seek refuge in Kenya," said Mohamed Gabow Kharbat, mayor of Garissa, the provincial capital. "To recruit them and send them back to the same situation they ran away from, this is terrible."
Kharbat said that "most of the youths have no parents, no family members to protest on their behalf. And even if they have parents, these are people who are scared of the government security organs. They can never have the confidence to complain."
The recruitment comes amid fears that Somalia's Islamist militants could extend their reach into Kenya, Uganda and other neighboring countries. The Shabab has voiced support for al-Qaeda and has attracted jihadists from around the world. The United States and European nations are supporting the pro-Western Somalia transitional government with arms, cash, training and intelligence.
Somali refugees have few opportunities in Kenya, which has imposed strict residency rules and limits on travel, making it difficult for them to find jobs. Many youths are uneducated.
"The Shabab and all other groups have representation here," said Abdul Khader, 35, a refugee youth leader. "They give a lot of false hopes to the refugees."
Hassan Mukhtar, 16, was recruited to fight for the Somali government with a promise of $300 a month and a $50 signing bonus.
When he and other recruits did not get their signing bonus, they jumped out of the truck on the way to Manyani.
A Shabab recruiter enticed Mukhtar Awliyahan, 16, by promising him $300 month. He was taken to Somalia and given the nom de guerre "Mukhtarullah" -- the One Chosen by God. In January, tired of fighting, he escaped. Today he keeps a low profile in the camp. "They are still recruiting," he said.
Hezbi Islam, a rival militia, recruited Bare Ali Jama, 19. "I had nothing to substitute for this offer," said Jama, who joined along with five other refugees. In February, Shabab fighters pushed them out of their stronghold; he fled back to Kenya. Still jobless, he wants to return to Somalia. "I will fight for anybody," he said
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 6, 2010; A07
The Washington Post
DADAAB, KENYA - The U.S.-backed government of Somalia and its Kenyan allies have recruited hundreds of Somali refugees, including children, to fight in a war against al-Shabab, an Islamist militia linked to al-Qaeda, according to former recruits, their relatives and community leaders.
Many of the recruits were taken from the sprawling Dadaab refugee camps in northeastern Kenya, which borders Somalia. Somali government recruiters and Kenyan soldiers came to the camps late last year, promising refugees as much as $600 a month to join a force advertised as supported by the United Nations or the United States, the former recruits and their families said.
"They have stolen my son from me," said Noor Muhamed, 70, a paraplegic refugee whose son Abdi was recruited.
Across this region, children and young men are vanishing. All sides in Somalia's conflict are recruiting refugees to fight in a remote battleground in the global war on terrorism from which they fled, community leaders say.
It is unclear whether recruiting by the governments of Kenya and Somalia is ongoing. But their military officers continue to train refugees at a heavily guarded base near the northern Kenyan town of Isiolo as the Somali government prepares for a long-planned offensive against the Shabab.
A second camp is in Manyani, a training station for the Kenya Wildlife Service in southern Kenya, according to former recruits, relatives, community leaders and U.N. investigators.
"They told us we were going to Somalia soon," said Hassan Farah, 23, who escaped from the Isiolo camp last month.
Farah, who was injured in a 2008 bombing in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, first spent more than two months at Manyani. "I saw 12-year-old children at the camp," said Farah, who has a jagged scar on his left arm. He escaped by bribing a water truck driver to sneak him out.
The Kenyan government has acknowledged that it is helping train police officers for Somalia's weak interim government but said that the recruits were flown in from Mogadishu. "No one is recruited from the refugee camps," said Alfred Mutua, a Kenyan government spokesman.
But a recent U.N. report on Somalia confirmed the recruitment of refugees, including underage youths, for military training. Kenya's training program, the report said, is a violation of a U.N. arms embargo, which requires nations to get permission from the U.N. Security Council before assisting Somalia's security efforts.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the U.N. special representative to Somalia, said he has not personally seen evidence to act on. "If this recruiting is happening, we have to condemn it," he said.
Recruiting refugees is a violation of international law, and enlisting children under 15 constitutes war crimes, human rights groups say.
"They told me I would become a soldier and fight the Shabab," said Ahmed Barre, a bone-thin 15-year-old whose family fled Somalia's anarchy in 1991, when the central government collapsed. He was born in Dadaab's camps and has never been to Somalia. "I didn't want to go. But I was jobless. I wanted to help my family."
A State Department spokesman, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said, "We strongly condemn recruitment in the refugee camps by any party." Senior U.S. officials, he added, "have stressed" to top Kenyan and Somali government officials "the need to prevent any recruitment in refugee camps."
Human Rights Watch has also raised concerns about the force, which numbers roughly 2,500.
Once the recruits signed up, their cellphones and identification cards were taken. They never saw the promised money. And they were denied access to their traumatized families, which, fearing deportation, seldom complained to the authorities, local officials and recruits said.
"These people ran away for their dear lives to seek refuge in Kenya," said Mohamed Gabow Kharbat, mayor of Garissa, the provincial capital. "To recruit them and send them back to the same situation they ran away from, this is terrible."
Kharbat said that "most of the youths have no parents, no family members to protest on their behalf. And even if they have parents, these are people who are scared of the government security organs. They can never have the confidence to complain."
The recruitment comes amid fears that Somalia's Islamist militants could extend their reach into Kenya, Uganda and other neighboring countries. The Shabab has voiced support for al-Qaeda and has attracted jihadists from around the world. The United States and European nations are supporting the pro-Western Somalia transitional government with arms, cash, training and intelligence.
Somali refugees have few opportunities in Kenya, which has imposed strict residency rules and limits on travel, making it difficult for them to find jobs. Many youths are uneducated.
"The Shabab and all other groups have representation here," said Abdul Khader, 35, a refugee youth leader. "They give a lot of false hopes to the refugees."
Hassan Mukhtar, 16, was recruited to fight for the Somali government with a promise of $300 a month and a $50 signing bonus.
When he and other recruits did not get their signing bonus, they jumped out of the truck on the way to Manyani.
A Shabab recruiter enticed Mukhtar Awliyahan, 16, by promising him $300 month. He was taken to Somalia and given the nom de guerre "Mukhtarullah" -- the One Chosen by God. In January, tired of fighting, he escaped. Today he keeps a low profile in the camp. "They are still recruiting," he said.
Hezbi Islam, a rival militia, recruited Bare Ali Jama, 19. "I had nothing to substitute for this offer," said Jama, who joined along with five other refugees. In February, Shabab fighters pushed them out of their stronghold; he fled back to Kenya. Still jobless, he wants to return to Somalia. "I will fight for anybody," he said
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Israeli journalist Anat Kam under secret house arrest since December
Guardian
Woman faces treason trial after allegedly leaking documents that suggest military breached court order on West Bank assassinations
An Israeli journalist has been under secret house arrest since December on charges that she leaked highly sensitive, classified military documents that suggest the Israeli military breached a court order on assassinations in the occupied West Bank.
Anat Kam, 23, goes on trial in two weeks on treason and espionage charges and could face up to 14 years in jail. A court-imposed gagging order, proposed by the state and more recently by the defence, is preventing media coverage of the arrest and charges in Israel.
Kam is reportedly accused of copying military documents while she was a soldier on national service and then passing them to an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. Kam denies the charges. Her lawyers declined to respond to repeated requests for comment.
A Haaretz journalist, Uri Blau, who has written several stories critical of the Israeli military and who has been linked in internet reports to the case, has left Israel and is now in London, apparently for fear he will be targeted for his reporting. Haaretz and Channel 10, an Israeli television station, will challenge the media gagging order at a hearing on 12 April, two days before Kam's trial is due to start at the Tel Aviv district court.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which reported the story from New York this week, said the investigation into Kam was jointly conducted by Israeli military intelligence, the police and the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security service. The Israeli military declined to comment on the case.
During her military service, Kam reportedly worked in the office of a senior Israeli general and is accused of copying classified documents from the office. After her time in the army she became a journalist, working for the Israeli news website Walla, which was previously partly owned by Haaretz but entirely editorially independent. Reports suggest she is accused of leaking the documents to Haaretz.
Attention has focused on an investigation Haaretz published on the Israeli military's assassination policy in November 2008, written by Uri Blau and headlined "Licence to Kill". He reported that the military, the Israel Defence Force, had been carrying out assassinations of Palestinian militants in the West Bank in contravention of an Israeli high court ruling, which said efforts should be made first to arrest suspected militants rather than assassinating them.
The story described meetings in the spring of 2007 in which senior Israeli generals discussed a mission to assassinate Ziad Subahi Mahmad Malaisha, a senior leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The army chief, General Gabi Ashkenazi, allegedly approved the operation but said Malaisha's car was not to be attacked if there was "more than one unidentified passenger" in it.
Malaisha and another Islamic Jihad leader were killed by the military in June that year, and the military claimed at the time that the militants had first opened fire at the soldiers.
One of the generals involved in the meetings, Major-General Yair Naveh, was quoted in the story as defending the killings as legal. The AP reported that Kam served in Naveh's office during her military service.
The Haaretz piece was accompanied by copies of military documents but it was approved by the military censor before publication, the Guardian understands. The story was published more than a year before Kam was arrested and was followed by several other articles by Blau that were similarly critical of the military.
Dov Alfon, editor of Haaretz, said: "Uri Blau is in London. He will be there until his editors decide otherwise. We are ready to continue to keep him in London as long as needed. Uri Blau published a lot of articles in Haaretz. All of them are dynamite stuff and it is clear of course that the authorities are not satisfied with these kind of revelations in a major newspaper.
"We understand this but we also understand that Israel is still a democracy and therefore we intend to continue to publish whatever public interest demands and our reporters can reveal."
Woman faces treason trial after allegedly leaking documents that suggest military breached court order on West Bank assassinations
An Israeli journalist has been under secret house arrest since December on charges that she leaked highly sensitive, classified military documents that suggest the Israeli military breached a court order on assassinations in the occupied West Bank.
Anat Kam, 23, goes on trial in two weeks on treason and espionage charges and could face up to 14 years in jail. A court-imposed gagging order, proposed by the state and more recently by the defence, is preventing media coverage of the arrest and charges in Israel.
Kam is reportedly accused of copying military documents while she was a soldier on national service and then passing them to an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz. Kam denies the charges. Her lawyers declined to respond to repeated requests for comment.
A Haaretz journalist, Uri Blau, who has written several stories critical of the Israeli military and who has been linked in internet reports to the case, has left Israel and is now in London, apparently for fear he will be targeted for his reporting. Haaretz and Channel 10, an Israeli television station, will challenge the media gagging order at a hearing on 12 April, two days before Kam's trial is due to start at the Tel Aviv district court.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which reported the story from New York this week, said the investigation into Kam was jointly conducted by Israeli military intelligence, the police and the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security service. The Israeli military declined to comment on the case.
During her military service, Kam reportedly worked in the office of a senior Israeli general and is accused of copying classified documents from the office. After her time in the army she became a journalist, working for the Israeli news website Walla, which was previously partly owned by Haaretz but entirely editorially independent. Reports suggest she is accused of leaking the documents to Haaretz.
Attention has focused on an investigation Haaretz published on the Israeli military's assassination policy in November 2008, written by Uri Blau and headlined "Licence to Kill". He reported that the military, the Israel Defence Force, had been carrying out assassinations of Palestinian militants in the West Bank in contravention of an Israeli high court ruling, which said efforts should be made first to arrest suspected militants rather than assassinating them.
The story described meetings in the spring of 2007 in which senior Israeli generals discussed a mission to assassinate Ziad Subahi Mahmad Malaisha, a senior leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The army chief, General Gabi Ashkenazi, allegedly approved the operation but said Malaisha's car was not to be attacked if there was "more than one unidentified passenger" in it.
Malaisha and another Islamic Jihad leader were killed by the military in June that year, and the military claimed at the time that the militants had first opened fire at the soldiers.
One of the generals involved in the meetings, Major-General Yair Naveh, was quoted in the story as defending the killings as legal. The AP reported that Kam served in Naveh's office during her military service.
The Haaretz piece was accompanied by copies of military documents but it was approved by the military censor before publication, the Guardian understands. The story was published more than a year before Kam was arrested and was followed by several other articles by Blau that were similarly critical of the military.
Dov Alfon, editor of Haaretz, said: "Uri Blau is in London. He will be there until his editors decide otherwise. We are ready to continue to keep him in London as long as needed. Uri Blau published a lot of articles in Haaretz. All of them are dynamite stuff and it is clear of course that the authorities are not satisfied with these kind of revelations in a major newspaper.
"We understand this but we also understand that Israel is still a democracy and therefore we intend to continue to publish whatever public interest demands and our reporters can reveal."
The alienation of Hamid Karzai
Asia times
By M K Bhadrakumar
It must have been the first time in the history of the United States that an incumbent president had to undertake a 26-hour plane journey abroad with repeated mid-air refueling to meet a foreign leader - all for a 30-minute pow-wow.
The staggering message that came out of US President Barack Obama's hurried mission to the presidential palace in Kabul to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai last Sunday afternoon is that his own AfPak diplomats have let him down badly.
The US president is left with not a single functionary in his star-studded AfPak team on whom he can rely to hold meaningful interaction with the Afghanistan president. Of course, AfPak special representative Richard Holbrooke is not about to lose his job so long as he enjoys the confidence of his mentor in Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The Holbrooke factor
Why have things come to this impasse? The plain truth is that Karzai distrusts Holbrooke. He shares the widespread opinion in the capitals of the region that Holbrooke is under a Pakistani spell. On the other hand, Holbrooke's version is that Karzai is corrupt and presides over a morally decrepit and decadent regime that hangs around America's neck like an albatross.
But then, no one is asking Holbrooke since when is it that corruption became a big issue in America's South Asia policies? Billions and billions of dollars American taxpayers' dollars were funneled into the black hole that was military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq's Pakistan during the Afghan jihad.
In today's Afghan war, history is repeating itself. There is no accountability about where the money is going and it is the talk of the bazaars that vested interests control disbursement of such vast sums of money. The US Congress should perhaps begin an investigation starting with the so-called "experts" who advise the Pentagon and Holbrooke's team.
If the local grapevine is to be believed, a gravy train runs through Rawalpindi and Lahore to Kabul for civilian and military "experts" and "advisors" who are having a whale of a time.
Obama has lived in Indonesia and can figure out how gravy trains run on and on. For argument's sake, how much of the money that the international community poured into Afghanistan has indeed passed through Karzai's hands?
If the report tabled by the United Nations secretary general that was tabled in the Security Council in New York in March is to be believed, even after eight years of engagement in Afghanistan, 80% of international community assistance still bypasses the Afghan government and is not closely aligned with Kabul's priorities. Therefore, the corruption in Afghanistan needs to be viewed in perspective.
Karzai makes a serious point when he says that those who talk about corruption are obfuscating the real issues that aggravate the crisis of confidence between him and Washington. Now that Obama has plunged into the cesspool of AfPak diplomacy, he should perhaps get to the bottom of it and make it a point to try to understand why Karzai feels so alienated.
Looking back, the turning point was the critical period leading to the Afghan presidential election. Holbrooke should never have tried to exert blatant strong-arm tactics aimed at expelling Karzai from the Afghan leadership. Afghans are a proud people and will never tolerate such nonsense from a foreigner.
ISI's fear of Karzai
Karzai believes that Holbrooke and his aides were heavily influenced by Pakistani advice. Unsurprisingly, Pakistan hates Karzai and knows that as long as a Popolzai chieftain remains in power in Kabul, it cannot have its way in Afghanistan.
Karzai represents exactly the sort of Pashtun nationalism that the Punjabi-dominated military establishment in Pakistan dreads. When the ISI murdered former Afghan president Mohammad Najibullah in 1996, its calculations were precisely the same; namely, that there should be no rival fountainhead outside of its orbit of control with the potential stature to claim leadership in the Pashtun constituency.
The ISI is well aware that Karzai, in crafting his national reconciliation policy, is almost entirely emulating Najibullah. Like Najibullah, Karzai is at ease with the political ethos of observant Muslims, though himself imbued with staunchly secular beliefs. So, he cannot be pitted as alien to Afghan culture or to Islam.
Like Najibullah, he is prepared to accommodate the Islamist elements in the power structure within the framework of a broad-based government. He is also well-educated and urbane, and yet he keeps closely in touch with the tribal ethos and culture.
Karzai has direct contacts with the opposition Islamist camp and has no need of ISI intermediaries to put him in touch with the Taliban. Most importantly, like Najibullah - who was a blue-blooded Ahmedzai - Karzai too is a Pashtun aristocrat who has a place and a name in Pashtun tribal society.
In Karzai, the ISI faces a formidable opponent. The Taliban leaders will always appear to the ordinary Afghan as obscurant and medieval in comparison.
A shrewd tactician and coalition-builder like Karzai can be expected to frustrate the best-laid plans of the ISI to project power into Afghanistan. The ISI desperately tried to woo non-Pashtun ethnic groups during recent years, but Karzai frustrated these attempts and they eventually opted to rally behind him.
In short, no other Pashtun today on the Afghan political landscape has Karzai's ability to assemble such a diverse coalition comprising powerful non-Pashtun leaders such as Mohammed Fahim, Rashid Dostum and Karim Khalili (who often don't enjoy good relations amongst themselves), former Mujahideen commanders and tribal leaders, and even erstwhile communists and technocrats.
Karzai's game plan
Now, the big question for Obama is whether US interests necessarily coincide with those of the ISI. If they do not, Obama needs to ask Holbrooke for a coherent explanation as to why he used all his skill and the power of US muscle to try to oust Karzai.
Having failed to unseat Karzai, a furious media campaign has been launched to settle scores by humiliating him on the one hand and to establish that he must somehow be removed from power. Karzai's family members have been dragged into the controversy. Does the US think the Pakistani generals it deals with are lily-white?
Karzai, of course, proved to be no cakewalk for Holbrooke. He brusquely showed Holbrooke the door after a famous showdown in the presidential palace. Since then Karzai is a changed man. He is constantly on guard against American schemes aimed at trapping him.
Therefore, Obama did the right thing by deciding to deal with Karzai, warts and all, personally. In fact, he should have undertaken this mission to Kabul at least six months ago.
Karzai is a deeply disillusioned man today. The responsibility for almost all that has gone wrong in the war is placed on his doorstep. The whole world knows that the Afghan governmental machinery simply lacks the "capacity" to govern. There just aren't enough Afghans with the requisite skill to be administrators at the central or local level. There is no such thing as a state structure on the ground in Afghanistan. The people are so desperately poor that they go to any extent to eke out day-to-day living. Indeed, Karzai has to make do with what he has got, which is pitiably little.
Then, there is the acute security situation, which all but precludes effective governance. Karzai is invariably held responsible by the Afghan people for the excessive use of force by the US military and North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies during their operations that result in large-scale "collateral killings". Every time wanton killings take place, he cuts a sorry figure when it transpires that Americans coolly ignore his protestations.
To compound everything, Karzai is aghast that the ISI, which promotes the insurgency, is today far closer to the AfPak team than he could ever imagine himself to be. It is literally a situation where it's his word against the ISI's.
Thus, Karzai has turned to various groups to tap into the vast reservoir of resentment in the Afghan opinion about Pakistan's half-a-century-long interference in their country's internal affairs. In order to isolate Karzai, a campaign has been built up regarding these groups - "warlordism".
Gullible Western opinion gets carried away by the campaign over "warlordism", which militates against human rights and norms of civilized life. But no one ponders as to when is it in its entire history Afghanistan could do away with local strongmen, sodomy, tribalism or gun culture?
Besides, is "warlordism" typical of Afghanistan? Is it alien to Pakistan's feudal society? Famous books have been written about the "feudal lords" in the Punjab. According to authoritative estimates, not less than 8,000 Pakistanis have simply disappeared from the face of the earth after being nabbed by Pakistani security agencies since September 2001. Richard Falk, a renowned British journalist who is currently on a visit to Pakistan, has written harrowing accounts of what he has heard about these "disappeared".
Aren't the Taliban commanders "warlords"? The politics behind the highly selective invocation of "warlordism" in Afghanistan must be properly understood. It aims at discrediting Karzai's allies like Fahim, Dostum and Khalili, who would resist to the last minute another Taliban takeover of their country.
Taliban are fair game
The ISI's biggest worry is that some day Karzai might get through to Taliban leader Mullah Omar himself. Karzai has made no bones about it, either. As things stand, the ISI has to keep one eye over its shoulders all the time to see that outsiders do not poach in the Taliban camp. Keeping the Quetta Shura together as a single flock has always been a tough job that it is only going to get tougher.
The ISI dreads to think that all sorts of poachers are stalking the Taliban today - Iranians, Indians, Saudis, Russians, British, the Central Asians, and indeed the Americans themselves. The intelligence services of the world are no longer prepared to accept that the Taliban should remain the ISI's sole monopoly.
From the Taliban perspective, they too harbor hopes of some day breaking out of the ISI stranglehold. The ISI always had nightmarish fears that the Taliban might make overtures to Delhi for a covert relationship. Whenever it appeared that the Taliban were reaching out to the Indians (or vice versa ) and that some sort of communication channel might open between the erstwhile adversaries, the ISI precipitated gruesome incidents that hardened attitudes in Delhi and the door became shut against any form of rapprochement between the Taliban and the Indians.
Such ISI operations continue even today. It is a different matter, though, that there are probably enough "hawks" within the Indian strategic community and security establishment, too, who lack the political astuteness to respond to subtle overtures from the Taliban. In fact, the Indian consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar can provide a great window for establishing direct contact with the Taliban. The ISI may not even get to know about such contacts.
Clearly, Obama's agenda is different from the ISI's. What Obama needs to factor in is that if Karzai is allowed a free hand, he will establish dialogue with the Taliban, sooner or later bypassing the ISI.
Karzai has excellent networking with the tribal channels and with Peshawar-based Pashtun nationalists. A genuine national reconciliation becomes possible since Karzai can act as a bridge between the Taliban and the virulently anti-Taliban "warlords". On the other hand, the backing of the "warlords" ensures that Karzai does not get overwhelmed by the Taliban. This is important as the Taliban today are the single-best organized force in the country, whereas Karzai lacks muscle power on his own without the backing of the "warlords".
Quintessentially, Karzai has resorted to what can only be called the "united front" strategy, to use the Marxist-Leninist parlance. He is probably on the right course, and in any case he has no other choice because he cannot hold out indefinitely against the full weight of the Pakistani "deep state" bent on demolishing him.
When American commentators blame Karzai for his apparent hurry to have alleged trade-offs with the Taliban, including Mullah Omar, they are unfairly not taking into account his real compulsions.
Curiously, Karzai's allies, the notoriously anti-Taliban "warlords" from the non-Pashtun groups, who have everything to lose in the event of a Taliban takeover, also see that time is not on their side as war-weariness sets in and the US searches for an exit strategy.
They also apprehend that the Taliban will become irreconcilable if the US's surge in military presence fails to produce the intended results, and, therefore, they realize the urgent need for the reconciliation strategy that Karzai is probing.
In their estimation, the "Afghan-ness" of the Taliban will eventually come out once they come on board a coalition - and that will erode the ISI's stranglehold over their country.
Pashtun alienation
That is to say, Obama should realize that Karzai does not visualize the Americans as his enemy, as is often being projected naively by correspondents for the Western media . Nor is Karzai irrational in striving for reconciliation. He has no reason to torpedo Obama's policy or to "spite" the US, as interpreted recently by a Washington Post correspondent.
Karzai is an able politician with acute survival instincts, and he is not a woolly headed romantic who fancies that he can get away with strategic defiance of the US, which has staked its global prestige and that of the entire Western alliance in the war in the Hindu Kush.
Obama should distinguish that it is the ISI and the Pakistani military whom Karzai (and the "warlords") considers to be his adversaries. His frustration is that the Americans are either far too naive to comprehend what is going on or are dissimulating since they are pursuing some "hidden agenda" in relation to the geopolitics of the region.
Karzai's alienation is widely shared by the Afghan elites in both Kabul and Peshawar. A grand tribal jirga was recently held in Peshawar just ahead of the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue of March 24, and was widely attended by noted Pashtun intellectuals, tribal leaders, politicians, professionals, civil society members, women's groups and representatives of established political parties of the North-West Frontier Agency.
Obama can always ask the American consulate in Peshawar for a report on the jirga. It will prove an eye-opener. Essentially, the jirga raised the widespread grievance that the Pashtuns do not trust Pakistan's Punjabi-dominated military establishment, which was leading the strategic dialogue with the US. The jirga alleged that the Pakistani military establishment's sole agenda is to attain "strategic depth" in Afghanistan and this lies at the root of the sufferings of the Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line.
The jirga issued the Peshawar Declaration, a statement which cautioned Washington that the root causes of terrorism lie in the Pakistani military establishment's "strategic depth" mindset and the Arab expansionism embodied by the al-Qaeda under the garb of global Islam.
It made an impassioned plea not to leave the helpless Pashtuns of the tribal agencies and the North-West Frontier Province at the mercy of the Pakistani army and the intelligence agencies.
In the prevailing circumstances, Karzai has no option but to turn toward Tehran for understanding and support. The Iranians have a profound understanding of the Afghan chessboard and can grasp the raging storms in the mind of the Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line.
The Iranians empathize with the plight of the Pashtuns, whose traditional way of life and eclectic culture have been systematically vandalized during the recent decades of the jihad. The Iranians are inclined to help Karzai, as they do not want a takeover of Afghanistan by the Wahhabi-inclined Taliban. The Iranians also have good contacts with the "warlords" and can ensure that the latter work with Karzai.
These are all good enough reasons why Karzai is keen to shore up Iranian support. But Karzai has no reason to conspire with the Iranians against the US. His first option will always be that the US reposes confidence in him and allows him to negotiate a national reconciliation.
Nor is Tehran unaware that Karzai's first preference will always be to work with the Americans. If Tehran has still opted to work with Karzai, that is because he has been an exceptionally good neighbor and, even during the period when he might have been an American "puppet", he never acted in a hostile manner against Iranian interests, instead welcoming Iran's participation in the Afghan reconstruction.
The human factor
In sum, Obama has done the right thing by inviting Karzai to go over to Washington in May to discuss all issues with him directly. In a war theater with 100,000 troops deployed, this is the right approach for a commander-in-chief to take. Even in our information age, wars cannot be fought through remote-control or video-conferencing. The human factor still counts.
In all probability, Obama will have the opportunity to form his own opinions about Karzai rather than hear from second-hand sources. Obama has a rare streak in his political personality insofar as, ultimately, he works his way out himself. He seems to sense he needs to get a correct picture of what is going on in Kabul and that is best done by seeing for himself.
Indeed, the stakes are high for Obama politically. The fact that he kept his distance from the high-profile Pakistani delegation that visited Washington last week is in itself an extraordinary statement regarding the way that his mind's antennae are probing the AfPak landscape.
Meanwhile, Holbrooke doesn't become superfluous. He claims to have developed good personal chemistry with Pakistani army chief General Pervez Kiani, which is always useful. Holbrooke should perhaps visit Islamabad and Rawalpindi more frequently.
Ambassador Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
By M K Bhadrakumar
It must have been the first time in the history of the United States that an incumbent president had to undertake a 26-hour plane journey abroad with repeated mid-air refueling to meet a foreign leader - all for a 30-minute pow-wow.
The staggering message that came out of US President Barack Obama's hurried mission to the presidential palace in Kabul to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai last Sunday afternoon is that his own AfPak diplomats have let him down badly.
The US president is left with not a single functionary in his star-studded AfPak team on whom he can rely to hold meaningful interaction with the Afghanistan president. Of course, AfPak special representative Richard Holbrooke is not about to lose his job so long as he enjoys the confidence of his mentor in Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The Holbrooke factor
Why have things come to this impasse? The plain truth is that Karzai distrusts Holbrooke. He shares the widespread opinion in the capitals of the region that Holbrooke is under a Pakistani spell. On the other hand, Holbrooke's version is that Karzai is corrupt and presides over a morally decrepit and decadent regime that hangs around America's neck like an albatross.
But then, no one is asking Holbrooke since when is it that corruption became a big issue in America's South Asia policies? Billions and billions of dollars American taxpayers' dollars were funneled into the black hole that was military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq's Pakistan during the Afghan jihad.
In today's Afghan war, history is repeating itself. There is no accountability about where the money is going and it is the talk of the bazaars that vested interests control disbursement of such vast sums of money. The US Congress should perhaps begin an investigation starting with the so-called "experts" who advise the Pentagon and Holbrooke's team.
If the local grapevine is to be believed, a gravy train runs through Rawalpindi and Lahore to Kabul for civilian and military "experts" and "advisors" who are having a whale of a time.
Obama has lived in Indonesia and can figure out how gravy trains run on and on. For argument's sake, how much of the money that the international community poured into Afghanistan has indeed passed through Karzai's hands?
If the report tabled by the United Nations secretary general that was tabled in the Security Council in New York in March is to be believed, even after eight years of engagement in Afghanistan, 80% of international community assistance still bypasses the Afghan government and is not closely aligned with Kabul's priorities. Therefore, the corruption in Afghanistan needs to be viewed in perspective.
Karzai makes a serious point when he says that those who talk about corruption are obfuscating the real issues that aggravate the crisis of confidence between him and Washington. Now that Obama has plunged into the cesspool of AfPak diplomacy, he should perhaps get to the bottom of it and make it a point to try to understand why Karzai feels so alienated.
Looking back, the turning point was the critical period leading to the Afghan presidential election. Holbrooke should never have tried to exert blatant strong-arm tactics aimed at expelling Karzai from the Afghan leadership. Afghans are a proud people and will never tolerate such nonsense from a foreigner.
ISI's fear of Karzai
Karzai believes that Holbrooke and his aides were heavily influenced by Pakistani advice. Unsurprisingly, Pakistan hates Karzai and knows that as long as a Popolzai chieftain remains in power in Kabul, it cannot have its way in Afghanistan.
Karzai represents exactly the sort of Pashtun nationalism that the Punjabi-dominated military establishment in Pakistan dreads. When the ISI murdered former Afghan president Mohammad Najibullah in 1996, its calculations were precisely the same; namely, that there should be no rival fountainhead outside of its orbit of control with the potential stature to claim leadership in the Pashtun constituency.
The ISI is well aware that Karzai, in crafting his national reconciliation policy, is almost entirely emulating Najibullah. Like Najibullah, Karzai is at ease with the political ethos of observant Muslims, though himself imbued with staunchly secular beliefs. So, he cannot be pitted as alien to Afghan culture or to Islam.
Like Najibullah, he is prepared to accommodate the Islamist elements in the power structure within the framework of a broad-based government. He is also well-educated and urbane, and yet he keeps closely in touch with the tribal ethos and culture.
Karzai has direct contacts with the opposition Islamist camp and has no need of ISI intermediaries to put him in touch with the Taliban. Most importantly, like Najibullah - who was a blue-blooded Ahmedzai - Karzai too is a Pashtun aristocrat who has a place and a name in Pashtun tribal society.
In Karzai, the ISI faces a formidable opponent. The Taliban leaders will always appear to the ordinary Afghan as obscurant and medieval in comparison.
A shrewd tactician and coalition-builder like Karzai can be expected to frustrate the best-laid plans of the ISI to project power into Afghanistan. The ISI desperately tried to woo non-Pashtun ethnic groups during recent years, but Karzai frustrated these attempts and they eventually opted to rally behind him.
In short, no other Pashtun today on the Afghan political landscape has Karzai's ability to assemble such a diverse coalition comprising powerful non-Pashtun leaders such as Mohammed Fahim, Rashid Dostum and Karim Khalili (who often don't enjoy good relations amongst themselves), former Mujahideen commanders and tribal leaders, and even erstwhile communists and technocrats.
Karzai's game plan
Now, the big question for Obama is whether US interests necessarily coincide with those of the ISI. If they do not, Obama needs to ask Holbrooke for a coherent explanation as to why he used all his skill and the power of US muscle to try to oust Karzai.
Having failed to unseat Karzai, a furious media campaign has been launched to settle scores by humiliating him on the one hand and to establish that he must somehow be removed from power. Karzai's family members have been dragged into the controversy. Does the US think the Pakistani generals it deals with are lily-white?
Karzai, of course, proved to be no cakewalk for Holbrooke. He brusquely showed Holbrooke the door after a famous showdown in the presidential palace. Since then Karzai is a changed man. He is constantly on guard against American schemes aimed at trapping him.
Therefore, Obama did the right thing by deciding to deal with Karzai, warts and all, personally. In fact, he should have undertaken this mission to Kabul at least six months ago.
Karzai is a deeply disillusioned man today. The responsibility for almost all that has gone wrong in the war is placed on his doorstep. The whole world knows that the Afghan governmental machinery simply lacks the "capacity" to govern. There just aren't enough Afghans with the requisite skill to be administrators at the central or local level. There is no such thing as a state structure on the ground in Afghanistan. The people are so desperately poor that they go to any extent to eke out day-to-day living. Indeed, Karzai has to make do with what he has got, which is pitiably little.
Then, there is the acute security situation, which all but precludes effective governance. Karzai is invariably held responsible by the Afghan people for the excessive use of force by the US military and North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies during their operations that result in large-scale "collateral killings". Every time wanton killings take place, he cuts a sorry figure when it transpires that Americans coolly ignore his protestations.
To compound everything, Karzai is aghast that the ISI, which promotes the insurgency, is today far closer to the AfPak team than he could ever imagine himself to be. It is literally a situation where it's his word against the ISI's.
Thus, Karzai has turned to various groups to tap into the vast reservoir of resentment in the Afghan opinion about Pakistan's half-a-century-long interference in their country's internal affairs. In order to isolate Karzai, a campaign has been built up regarding these groups - "warlordism".
Gullible Western opinion gets carried away by the campaign over "warlordism", which militates against human rights and norms of civilized life. But no one ponders as to when is it in its entire history Afghanistan could do away with local strongmen, sodomy, tribalism or gun culture?
Besides, is "warlordism" typical of Afghanistan? Is it alien to Pakistan's feudal society? Famous books have been written about the "feudal lords" in the Punjab. According to authoritative estimates, not less than 8,000 Pakistanis have simply disappeared from the face of the earth after being nabbed by Pakistani security agencies since September 2001. Richard Falk, a renowned British journalist who is currently on a visit to Pakistan, has written harrowing accounts of what he has heard about these "disappeared".
Aren't the Taliban commanders "warlords"? The politics behind the highly selective invocation of "warlordism" in Afghanistan must be properly understood. It aims at discrediting Karzai's allies like Fahim, Dostum and Khalili, who would resist to the last minute another Taliban takeover of their country.
Taliban are fair game
The ISI's biggest worry is that some day Karzai might get through to Taliban leader Mullah Omar himself. Karzai has made no bones about it, either. As things stand, the ISI has to keep one eye over its shoulders all the time to see that outsiders do not poach in the Taliban camp. Keeping the Quetta Shura together as a single flock has always been a tough job that it is only going to get tougher.
The ISI dreads to think that all sorts of poachers are stalking the Taliban today - Iranians, Indians, Saudis, Russians, British, the Central Asians, and indeed the Americans themselves. The intelligence services of the world are no longer prepared to accept that the Taliban should remain the ISI's sole monopoly.
From the Taliban perspective, they too harbor hopes of some day breaking out of the ISI stranglehold. The ISI always had nightmarish fears that the Taliban might make overtures to Delhi for a covert relationship. Whenever it appeared that the Taliban were reaching out to the Indians (or vice versa ) and that some sort of communication channel might open between the erstwhile adversaries, the ISI precipitated gruesome incidents that hardened attitudes in Delhi and the door became shut against any form of rapprochement between the Taliban and the Indians.
Such ISI operations continue even today. It is a different matter, though, that there are probably enough "hawks" within the Indian strategic community and security establishment, too, who lack the political astuteness to respond to subtle overtures from the Taliban. In fact, the Indian consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar can provide a great window for establishing direct contact with the Taliban. The ISI may not even get to know about such contacts.
Clearly, Obama's agenda is different from the ISI's. What Obama needs to factor in is that if Karzai is allowed a free hand, he will establish dialogue with the Taliban, sooner or later bypassing the ISI.
Karzai has excellent networking with the tribal channels and with Peshawar-based Pashtun nationalists. A genuine national reconciliation becomes possible since Karzai can act as a bridge between the Taliban and the virulently anti-Taliban "warlords". On the other hand, the backing of the "warlords" ensures that Karzai does not get overwhelmed by the Taliban. This is important as the Taliban today are the single-best organized force in the country, whereas Karzai lacks muscle power on his own without the backing of the "warlords".
Quintessentially, Karzai has resorted to what can only be called the "united front" strategy, to use the Marxist-Leninist parlance. He is probably on the right course, and in any case he has no other choice because he cannot hold out indefinitely against the full weight of the Pakistani "deep state" bent on demolishing him.
When American commentators blame Karzai for his apparent hurry to have alleged trade-offs with the Taliban, including Mullah Omar, they are unfairly not taking into account his real compulsions.
Curiously, Karzai's allies, the notoriously anti-Taliban "warlords" from the non-Pashtun groups, who have everything to lose in the event of a Taliban takeover, also see that time is not on their side as war-weariness sets in and the US searches for an exit strategy.
They also apprehend that the Taliban will become irreconcilable if the US's surge in military presence fails to produce the intended results, and, therefore, they realize the urgent need for the reconciliation strategy that Karzai is probing.
In their estimation, the "Afghan-ness" of the Taliban will eventually come out once they come on board a coalition - and that will erode the ISI's stranglehold over their country.
Pashtun alienation
That is to say, Obama should realize that Karzai does not visualize the Americans as his enemy, as is often being projected naively by correspondents for the Western media . Nor is Karzai irrational in striving for reconciliation. He has no reason to torpedo Obama's policy or to "spite" the US, as interpreted recently by a Washington Post correspondent.
Karzai is an able politician with acute survival instincts, and he is not a woolly headed romantic who fancies that he can get away with strategic defiance of the US, which has staked its global prestige and that of the entire Western alliance in the war in the Hindu Kush.
Obama should distinguish that it is the ISI and the Pakistani military whom Karzai (and the "warlords") considers to be his adversaries. His frustration is that the Americans are either far too naive to comprehend what is going on or are dissimulating since they are pursuing some "hidden agenda" in relation to the geopolitics of the region.
Karzai's alienation is widely shared by the Afghan elites in both Kabul and Peshawar. A grand tribal jirga was recently held in Peshawar just ahead of the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue of March 24, and was widely attended by noted Pashtun intellectuals, tribal leaders, politicians, professionals, civil society members, women's groups and representatives of established political parties of the North-West Frontier Agency.
Obama can always ask the American consulate in Peshawar for a report on the jirga. It will prove an eye-opener. Essentially, the jirga raised the widespread grievance that the Pashtuns do not trust Pakistan's Punjabi-dominated military establishment, which was leading the strategic dialogue with the US. The jirga alleged that the Pakistani military establishment's sole agenda is to attain "strategic depth" in Afghanistan and this lies at the root of the sufferings of the Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line.
The jirga issued the Peshawar Declaration, a statement which cautioned Washington that the root causes of terrorism lie in the Pakistani military establishment's "strategic depth" mindset and the Arab expansionism embodied by the al-Qaeda under the garb of global Islam.
It made an impassioned plea not to leave the helpless Pashtuns of the tribal agencies and the North-West Frontier Province at the mercy of the Pakistani army and the intelligence agencies.
In the prevailing circumstances, Karzai has no option but to turn toward Tehran for understanding and support. The Iranians have a profound understanding of the Afghan chessboard and can grasp the raging storms in the mind of the Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line.
The Iranians empathize with the plight of the Pashtuns, whose traditional way of life and eclectic culture have been systematically vandalized during the recent decades of the jihad. The Iranians are inclined to help Karzai, as they do not want a takeover of Afghanistan by the Wahhabi-inclined Taliban. The Iranians also have good contacts with the "warlords" and can ensure that the latter work with Karzai.
These are all good enough reasons why Karzai is keen to shore up Iranian support. But Karzai has no reason to conspire with the Iranians against the US. His first option will always be that the US reposes confidence in him and allows him to negotiate a national reconciliation.
Nor is Tehran unaware that Karzai's first preference will always be to work with the Americans. If Tehran has still opted to work with Karzai, that is because he has been an exceptionally good neighbor and, even during the period when he might have been an American "puppet", he never acted in a hostile manner against Iranian interests, instead welcoming Iran's participation in the Afghan reconstruction.
The human factor
In sum, Obama has done the right thing by inviting Karzai to go over to Washington in May to discuss all issues with him directly. In a war theater with 100,000 troops deployed, this is the right approach for a commander-in-chief to take. Even in our information age, wars cannot be fought through remote-control or video-conferencing. The human factor still counts.
In all probability, Obama will have the opportunity to form his own opinions about Karzai rather than hear from second-hand sources. Obama has a rare streak in his political personality insofar as, ultimately, he works his way out himself. He seems to sense he needs to get a correct picture of what is going on in Kabul and that is best done by seeing for himself.
Indeed, the stakes are high for Obama politically. The fact that he kept his distance from the high-profile Pakistani delegation that visited Washington last week is in itself an extraordinary statement regarding the way that his mind's antennae are probing the AfPak landscape.
Meanwhile, Holbrooke doesn't become superfluous. He claims to have developed good personal chemistry with Pakistani army chief General Pervez Kiani, which is always useful. Holbrooke should perhaps visit Islamabad and Rawalpindi more frequently.
Ambassador Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
ElBaradei urges Egyptian reforms
Al jazeera
Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, has issued a public call for political change in Egypt ahead of presidential elections planned for next year.
Elbaradei, who is seen as a potential candidate for the polls, made the call at a meeting in northeast Egypt, defying an emergency law that bans gatherings critical of the government of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president.
"The state may be a centralised power but the people are stronger," he said on Friday.
ElBaradei, who has said he might stand in the election, urged the crowd of about 700 people to add their names to a petition seeking constitutional change to allow independents to run for president.
"Once we gather as many names as possible we will put it forward and bring about real change," he said.
The petition also calls for the emergency law that allows detention without charge and bans anti-government political activity like ElBaradei's public speech to be revoked.
"We seek peaceful reform by rallying large numbers of supporters for change. We seek constitutional amendments and free and fair elections," ElBaradei said.
"The Egyptian citizen has the right to choose his president."
Rare political gathering
Egyptian police often break up gatherings of more than five people but Friday's events went ahead without interruption.
"We received instructions from the interior ministry to allow the rally and gathering to go smoothly," a security officer at the speech said.
The gathering in Mansura, a university town between Cairo and the Mediterranean Sea, drew students dressed in shirts bearing his image, as well as doctors, taxi drivers, engineers and housewives.
"Oh, ElBaradei, Egypt wants democracy!" supporters chanted.
"There are thousands of alternatives in Egypt, ElBaradei is proof."
The crowd sang the national anthem and also chanted, "ElBaradei, say it strongly, Egypt wants democracy".
ElBaradei said his aim was to bring as many people as possible to the streets.
"What we saw today is the writing on the wall," ElBaradei told the Reuters news agency.
"The average Egyptian is out on the street calling for change, and this destroys the myth that this movement is by the elite or is just a virtual one on the internet."
Political analysts say the chances of securing constitutional change by next year are remote, with Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party dominating political life in the most populous Arab nation.
"The regime is clever this time because it knows that with ElBaradei the rules of the game are different," Yahya Al Gamal, a professor of law professor, told Reuters.
"International public opinion is following ElBaradei's every move so the Egyptian government is being smart and behaving in an intelligent way."
Western policy
Mubarak, 81, who has ruled since 1981, has not said if he plans to run for a sixth six-year term in 2011, but many Egyptians speculate that he will seek to hand power to his son Gamal.
Speaking about Western governments support of Mubarak, Elbaradei told Britain's Guardian newspaper on Thursday that their policies towards Arab governments risked encouraging Islamic extremism.
"The idea that Bin Laden and company are the only alternative to authoritarian regimes is a fake one," he said.
"People feel repressed by their own governments, they feel unfairly treated by the outside world, they wake up in the morning and they see Muslims from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Darfur being shot and killed."
"It has not been based on dialogue, understanding, supporting civil society and empowering people, but rather it's been based on supporting authoritarian systems as long as the oil keeps pumping."
Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, has issued a public call for political change in Egypt ahead of presidential elections planned for next year.
Elbaradei, who is seen as a potential candidate for the polls, made the call at a meeting in northeast Egypt, defying an emergency law that bans gatherings critical of the government of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president.
"The state may be a centralised power but the people are stronger," he said on Friday.
ElBaradei, who has said he might stand in the election, urged the crowd of about 700 people to add their names to a petition seeking constitutional change to allow independents to run for president.
"Once we gather as many names as possible we will put it forward and bring about real change," he said.
The petition also calls for the emergency law that allows detention without charge and bans anti-government political activity like ElBaradei's public speech to be revoked.
"We seek peaceful reform by rallying large numbers of supporters for change. We seek constitutional amendments and free and fair elections," ElBaradei said.
"The Egyptian citizen has the right to choose his president."
Rare political gathering
Egyptian police often break up gatherings of more than five people but Friday's events went ahead without interruption.
"We received instructions from the interior ministry to allow the rally and gathering to go smoothly," a security officer at the speech said.
The gathering in Mansura, a university town between Cairo and the Mediterranean Sea, drew students dressed in shirts bearing his image, as well as doctors, taxi drivers, engineers and housewives.
"Oh, ElBaradei, Egypt wants democracy!" supporters chanted.
"There are thousands of alternatives in Egypt, ElBaradei is proof."
The crowd sang the national anthem and also chanted, "ElBaradei, say it strongly, Egypt wants democracy".
ElBaradei said his aim was to bring as many people as possible to the streets.
"What we saw today is the writing on the wall," ElBaradei told the Reuters news agency.
"The average Egyptian is out on the street calling for change, and this destroys the myth that this movement is by the elite or is just a virtual one on the internet."
Political analysts say the chances of securing constitutional change by next year are remote, with Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party dominating political life in the most populous Arab nation.
"The regime is clever this time because it knows that with ElBaradei the rules of the game are different," Yahya Al Gamal, a professor of law professor, told Reuters.
"International public opinion is following ElBaradei's every move so the Egyptian government is being smart and behaving in an intelligent way."
Western policy
Mubarak, 81, who has ruled since 1981, has not said if he plans to run for a sixth six-year term in 2011, but many Egyptians speculate that he will seek to hand power to his son Gamal.
Speaking about Western governments support of Mubarak, Elbaradei told Britain's Guardian newspaper on Thursday that their policies towards Arab governments risked encouraging Islamic extremism.
"The idea that Bin Laden and company are the only alternative to authoritarian regimes is a fake one," he said.
"People feel repressed by their own governments, they feel unfairly treated by the outside world, they wake up in the morning and they see Muslims from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Darfur being shot and killed."
"It has not been based on dialogue, understanding, supporting civil society and empowering people, but rather it's been based on supporting authoritarian systems as long as the oil keeps pumping."
Pakistan tables awaited constitutional reforms
Al arabiya
ISLAMABAD (Reuters)
The Pakistani government introduced a constitutional bill in parliament Friday to transfer President Asif Ali Zardari's sweeping powers to the prime minister, possibly ending months of political wrangling.
The set of reforms, known as the "18th Amendment Bill", is expected to be passed by the two-chambered parliament, effectively turning Zardari into a titular head of state.
The development may help calm political opposition to Zardari, but the government faces mounting pressure from an assertive Supreme Court to reopen corruption cases against the president after it threw out a controversial amnesty law in December.
"I suspect that after the signing of the 18th amendment, it (the political environment) is going to change," said Samina Ahmed, South Asia director for the International Crisis Group.
"Part of the problem is structural. Nobody knows where the locus of authority lies."
Because of that uncertainty, she said all branches of government are trying to expand their powers at the expense of the others.
"There's a little bit of muscle flexing all around."
18th amendment
But if the 18th Amendment goes through smoothly, the center of authority goes to the parliament, "with the judiciary interpreting" -- possibly leading to a less assertive bench.
"It will settle down," Ahmed predicted.
That hasn't happened yet. On Friday, Pakistan's Attorney General Anwar Mansoor Khan resigned, just one day after he told the Supreme Court that the law minister and his ministry were not providing him documents relating to corruption cases against thousands of people, including Zardari.
"It had become impossible for me to work in such a situation," Khan told Reuters.
Analysts say that even as a ceremonial president, Zardari would still yield considerable influence from his position as head of the Pakistan People's Party, the country's largest political party.
The PPP was once led by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Zardari's wife, who was assassinated in December 2007.
Under the proposed constitutional amendments, the president will lose his key powers, including the authority to dissolve the national assembly and appoint powerful military chiefs and the chief election commissioner.
The bill gives the prime minister final say on dissolving the national assembly and appointing the heads of the armed forces. The bill also shifts Zardari's powers to appoint judges to a commission comprised of senior judges and government figures.
Farah Ispahani, a senior PPP leader, said it was wrong to say the bill "stripped" Zardari of his powers, "as he himself sought to restore the constitution to its original form without the amendments imposed by dictators."
Reforms
" You think that the prime minister will become stronger after these amendments but I think now I will be the focus of all storms "
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza GilaniMost analysts, however, say Zardari only agreed to the reforms reluctantly after intense political pressure.
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, a staunch Bhutto loyalist, will emerge as the powerful head of the government after these constitutional reforms are adopted. Analysts say his role will come under increased scrutiny in the future.
"You think that the prime minister will become stronger after these amendments but I think now I will be the focus of all storms," Gilani told parliament before the introduction of the bill.
"These proposals will strengthen democratic institutions."
The reforms would also abolish the two-term limit on prime ministers, allowing Nawaz Sharif, a two-time former prime minister and now opposition leader, to contest for a third term after general elections due in 2013.
Under the bill, provinces will get greater autonomy, while the mainly ethnic Pashtun North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan gets a new name as "Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa" in a bid to represent its dominant population.
The legislation is likely to be passed by far more than the two-thirds super-majority needed in parliament because it has been drafted by a parliamentary committee made up of all political groups.
No date has been fixed for its adoption.
ISLAMABAD (Reuters)
The Pakistani government introduced a constitutional bill in parliament Friday to transfer President Asif Ali Zardari's sweeping powers to the prime minister, possibly ending months of political wrangling.
The set of reforms, known as the "18th Amendment Bill", is expected to be passed by the two-chambered parliament, effectively turning Zardari into a titular head of state.
The development may help calm political opposition to Zardari, but the government faces mounting pressure from an assertive Supreme Court to reopen corruption cases against the president after it threw out a controversial amnesty law in December.
"I suspect that after the signing of the 18th amendment, it (the political environment) is going to change," said Samina Ahmed, South Asia director for the International Crisis Group.
"Part of the problem is structural. Nobody knows where the locus of authority lies."
Because of that uncertainty, she said all branches of government are trying to expand their powers at the expense of the others.
"There's a little bit of muscle flexing all around."
18th amendment
But if the 18th Amendment goes through smoothly, the center of authority goes to the parliament, "with the judiciary interpreting" -- possibly leading to a less assertive bench.
"It will settle down," Ahmed predicted.
That hasn't happened yet. On Friday, Pakistan's Attorney General Anwar Mansoor Khan resigned, just one day after he told the Supreme Court that the law minister and his ministry were not providing him documents relating to corruption cases against thousands of people, including Zardari.
"It had become impossible for me to work in such a situation," Khan told Reuters.
Analysts say that even as a ceremonial president, Zardari would still yield considerable influence from his position as head of the Pakistan People's Party, the country's largest political party.
The PPP was once led by former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Zardari's wife, who was assassinated in December 2007.
Under the proposed constitutional amendments, the president will lose his key powers, including the authority to dissolve the national assembly and appoint powerful military chiefs and the chief election commissioner.
The bill gives the prime minister final say on dissolving the national assembly and appointing the heads of the armed forces. The bill also shifts Zardari's powers to appoint judges to a commission comprised of senior judges and government figures.
Farah Ispahani, a senior PPP leader, said it was wrong to say the bill "stripped" Zardari of his powers, "as he himself sought to restore the constitution to its original form without the amendments imposed by dictators."
Reforms
" You think that the prime minister will become stronger after these amendments but I think now I will be the focus of all storms "
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza GilaniMost analysts, however, say Zardari only agreed to the reforms reluctantly after intense political pressure.
Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, a staunch Bhutto loyalist, will emerge as the powerful head of the government after these constitutional reforms are adopted. Analysts say his role will come under increased scrutiny in the future.
"You think that the prime minister will become stronger after these amendments but I think now I will be the focus of all storms," Gilani told parliament before the introduction of the bill.
"These proposals will strengthen democratic institutions."
The reforms would also abolish the two-term limit on prime ministers, allowing Nawaz Sharif, a two-time former prime minister and now opposition leader, to contest for a third term after general elections due in 2013.
Under the bill, provinces will get greater autonomy, while the mainly ethnic Pashtun North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan gets a new name as "Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa" in a bid to represent its dominant population.
The legislation is likely to be passed by far more than the two-thirds super-majority needed in parliament because it has been drafted by a parliamentary committee made up of all political groups.
No date has been fixed for its adoption.
Gitmo inmates give food to Haiti quake victims
Al arabiya
WASHINGTON (AFP)
A group of inmates at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are setting aside some of their food as a donation to Haiti's earthquake victims, one of their lawyers told AFP.
Allison Lefrak said Ravil Mingazov, the last Russian held in Guantanamo, told him by telephone a week ago that fellow inmates from "camp 4" -- where the most cooperative prisoners are kept -- "had thought that a lot of food was going to be wasted."
"They thought it was common sense to ask if they can give it to the Haiti relief mission," the lawyer added.
Camp 4 prisoners are allowed to watch television and have been following the tragedy unfolding in nearby Haiti from the January 12 earthquake that killed about 220,000 people and left 1.3 million homeless, Lefrak said.
Despite their good intentions, he added, the prisoners of camp 4 were "doubtful" the food they have been gathering for around two weeks was actually being sent to Haiti by prison authorities.
WASHINGTON (AFP)
A group of inmates at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are setting aside some of their food as a donation to Haiti's earthquake victims, one of their lawyers told AFP.
Allison Lefrak said Ravil Mingazov, the last Russian held in Guantanamo, told him by telephone a week ago that fellow inmates from "camp 4" -- where the most cooperative prisoners are kept -- "had thought that a lot of food was going to be wasted."
"They thought it was common sense to ask if they can give it to the Haiti relief mission," the lawyer added.
Camp 4 prisoners are allowed to watch television and have been following the tragedy unfolding in nearby Haiti from the January 12 earthquake that killed about 220,000 people and left 1.3 million homeless, Lefrak said.
Despite their good intentions, he added, the prisoners of camp 4 were "doubtful" the food they have been gathering for around two weeks was actually being sent to Haiti by prison authorities.
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