Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://www.southasiainvestor.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ
Sunday, May 31, 2009
HDF Silicon Valley Fundraiser for Pakistan
The Human Development Foundation (HDF) held its sixth annual benefit dinner at the Wyndham Hotel in San Jose, CA, yesterday, May 30, 2009. The dinner attracted about 500 attendees. In spite of the down economy and rising unemployment in the high-tech valley, the event exceeded HDF 2008 record of $140,000 in donations by raising $170,000 this year for HDF programs, to increase literacy, improve healthcare and fight poverty in Pakistan. Similar events are held each year in all major cities in North America to raise large sums for the noble cause HDF has undertaken.
HDF's efforts are inspired by late Dr. Mahbub ul Haq, the famous Pakistani development economist who pioneered the prevailing human development theory, and founded the Human Development Report of UNDP published each year by the United Nations. The focus of the HDF effort can well be summed up by what Dr. Haq said, "..in the last analysis, it is a child who did not die, a disease that did not spread, an ethnic tension that did not explode, a dissident who was not silenced and a human spirit that was not crushed." Sadly, Dr. Haq's home country and his South Asian neighborhood continue to rank very low on the human development ranking of the nations of the world.
Local HDF sponsors presented a report on HDF projects in various parts of Pakistan, including community empowerment, village development, non-formal schools, adult literacy, health clinics, water management, microfinancing, etc. As the keynote speaker and US Congressman Mike Honda noted at the event, the efforts like HDF's are likely to be far more effective than the military operations to end insurgencies in South Asia.
Here are some of specific details of the HDF efforts in Pakistan:
1. Community Empowerment: Rather than giving out charity, HDF works in partnership with community participation for their uplift. Following this philosophy of "hand-up" instead of "hand-out", HDF has built the following:
a. 1302 development organizations(DOs).
b. 146 village development organizations(VDOs)
c. 61 activist workshops held
d. 10,851 people participated in community management skills training.
2. Community Physical Infrastructure Development: This program helps communities improve heir environment, including link roads, water storage, hand pumps, tube wells, irrigation, sanitation and pest control projects. Such projects are executed with community's sweat equity (DO) and manged by community (VDO) upon completion. Over 600 such projects have already been completed, and hundreds are currently underway.
3. Schools: HDF education program has grown from a few non-formal schools with 20-30 children each, to multi-grade schools with over 100 children each. Many of these schools operate in remote areas, and curriculum is activity-based to retain children's interest and reduce drop-out rates.
a. Over 10,000 students enrolled.
b. 193 non-formal one-room schools.
c. 16 primary and secondary schools.
d. 56 teacher training courses.
e. 254 adult literacy classes.
f. 3,600 adults attended schools.
4. Health: HDF offers healthcare programs from preventive to curative. In the areas served by HDF, here are some statistics:
a. 79% of births attended by trained personnel.
b. 65% of children are fully immunized.
c. 85% of children 2-5 years old are fully immunized.
d. 101,000 patients treated in out-patient clinics.
e. 918 health seminars presented.
f. 92 free healthcare camps organized.
5. Microfinancing:This program has grown from offering small loans to individuals to joint ventures and community partnerships, and "one village, one product" programs. In addition to capital, these programs also offer skills training to start and run the businesses. These microloan programs are based on the Islamic principle of Murahaba. Here are some specifics:
a. Over 6000 loans amounting to a total of over one million US dollars.
b. 98 joint ventures.
c. 8 "One Village, One Product" programs.
d. 138 poultry farming projects.
e. 9,500 people trained.
During his keynote speech, Congressman Honda said the US foreign policy should have the same goals that the HDF has in Pakistan. Drawing from his experience as a US peace corps volunteer to support education and infrastructure development in Central America in the 1960s, he proposed a similar effort in restoring US credibility in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He praised the new US emphasis on economic aid and said he supports the 80/20 rule that General Petraeus has outlined, with 80% emphasis on the political/economic effort backed by 20% military component to fight the Taliban insurgency. While the aid to Pakistan bill is still not fully developed, Honda wants to see a large part of the economic aid be funneled through non-government organizations(NGOs) and public-private partnerships to make such aid more effective in improving the lives of average Pakistanis. Honda strongly supports Congressman Kucinich's efforts to establish a US department of peace to focus on maintaining peace by developing and promoting conflict resolution techniques and broad efforts at human development and poverty alleviation.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich's bill proposes the cabinet-level Department of peace that embodies a broad-based approach to peaceful, non-violent conflict resolution at both domestic and international levels. The Department of Peace would serve to promote non-violence as an organizing principle in our society, and help to create the conditions for a more peaceful world.
In a panel discussion after the keynote, Ethan Casey praised what HDF and other Pakistani-American organizations are doing to decrease human suffering in Pakistan. But he emphasized the need for Pakistani-American community to also reach out to the the mainstream white Americans who are often ignorant and sometimes suspicious of Pakistan and Pakistanis. Casey, who often speaks to mainstream American audiences about Pakistan, has traveled to Pakistan several times and written a book about his experiences. Ethan singled out Greg Motenson's efforts in building schools in Pakistan's northern areas and recommended his book "Three Cups of Tea". He is planning to study Urdu as a graduate student at University of Washington in Seattle, and continue to pursue his interest in Pakistan.
Prior to the keynote and panel discussion, there was a presentation by Dr. Mubina Agboatwala, chairwoman of Health-Oriented Preventive Education (HOPE), a Karachi NGO. She talked about her visit to Mardan and the extreme heat and dire conditions in the refugee camps in the north west. These people have left the war zone for safety, following the counter-insurgency operation launched by Pakistan military. Dr. Agboatwala said that the government has registered and housed only about 15% of an estimated 2.5 million IDPs in government's tent cities. The rest are staying with friends or family, an untenable situation if the war drags on long.
San Jose city vice mayor Dave Cortese, a good friend of the local Pakistani-American community, spoke of the positive contributions of Javed Khan, the man behind the efforts of HDF in Silicon Valley, and presented a plaque to him, amidst loud applause by the audience.
The well-organized event concluded with a geet and ghazal program by singer Hanif Noormohammad.
The HDF events are sponsored by many prominent Pakistani-Americans, including NEDians in Silicon Valley, through their contributions of money and time every year.
My daughters have volunteered for this event in the past years and my family and I regularly attend it every year. It is one of the few Silicon Valley events that is truly worthwhile for us because of the money it raises to serve a very noble cause, near and dear to our hearts. Organizations like HDF represent the best way for us to move us toward a better world free of conflict where human life is truly valued.
Related Links:
Aid versus Trade, Investments and Remittances
Microfinancing in Pakistan
HDF Silicon Valley Fundraiser 2008
Aid to Pakistan Bill 2009
Light a Candle, Do Not Curse Darkness
Facebook Group-Zimmedar Shehri
Helping Children Become Responsible Citizens
Orangi Pilot Project
Three Cups of Tea
Volunteerism in America
Dr. Akhtar Hamid Khan's Vision
Labels:
2009,
HDF,
Human Development,
NGO,
Pakistan,
Silicon Valley
India's Israel Envy
Many well-meaning but misguided Pakistanis, such as Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy, continue to question the wisdom of Pakistani nuclear tests and subsequent ballistic missiles development in response to India going nuclear in May 1998. As we listen to their arguments, some of which appear quite reasonable and valid, let's try and put them in perspective by reviewing what has become known as India's "Israel envy".
Prior to Mumbai terror attacks last year, Indian author Pankaj Mishra wrote as follows:
"Gung-ho members of India's middle class clamor for Israeli-style retaliation against jihadi training camps in Pakistan. But India can "do a Lebanon" only by risking nuclear war with its neighbor; and Indian intelligence agencies are too inept to imitate Mossad's policy of targeted killings, which have reaped for Israel an endless supply of dedicated and resourceful enemies."
The growing admiration of the Jewish state and the urge to emulate Israel often find expression in the Indian media. Those who argue for "doing a Lebanon" in Pakistan have once again found growing support in India with the government and the media joining the chorus of accusations of Pakistan's complicity in Mumbai attacks last year. Saber rattling also started with India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee not ruling out military strikes in Pakistan. President Obama came out in support of India's right "to protect themselves". Asked if India had the right to “take out” high-value targets inside Pakistan with or without the permission of Islamabad, as he is espousing, he said: “I think that sovereign nations, obviously, have a right to protect themselves". This is the same kind of language that former President Bush often used in support of Israel's attacks on Palestinians and Lebanese.
Last year, as the Israeli jets ruthlessly pounded Palestinian civilians' homes, schools, hospitals, clinics and refugee camps, and then the Israeli tanks rolled into Gaza as part of Israel's criminal assault on an unarmed Palestinian civilian population, who do not have their own military to protect them, many Indians openly wished they could do the same in Pakistan.
It is strange to see the growing admiration of Israel among the Hindu right-wing, in sharp contrast to RSS founder Madhav Golwalkar's support for Hitler and his genocide of Jews. This is how British Historian William Dalrypmle describes it:
Golwalkar looked for inspiration to the Nazi thinkers of 1930’s Germany. He believed an independent India should emulate Hitler's treatment of religious minorities, which he thoroughly approved of: "To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging of its Semitic Race, the Jews," he wrote admiringly in We soon after Kristallnacht. "Race pride at its highest has been manifested there. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for Races and cultures having differences going to the root to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by... The foreign races in Hindusthan [ie the Muslims] must adopt the Hindu culture and language, must learn to respect and hold in reverence the Hindu religion, must entertain no ideas but those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture[… and] may [only] stay in the country wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing -- not even citizen’s rights."
During Partition in 1947, the RSS was responsible for many horrifying atrocities against India's Muslims, and it was a former RSS swayamsevak, Nathuram Godse, who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi for (in RSS eyes) “pandering” to the Muslims. In the aftermath of this, Nehru decided to deal with the threat he believed the Hindu Nationalists posed to the nation and denounced the RSS as a “private army which is proceeding on Nazi lines.”
Former UN diplomat and current Indian MP Sashi Tharoor described India's "Israel envy" and warned Indians against it in the following words:
Hamas is in no position to repay Israel's air and ground attacks in kind, whereas an Indian attack on Pakistani territory, even one targeting terrorist bases and training camps, would invite swift retaliation from the Pakistani army. And, at the end of the day, one chilling fact would prevent India from thinking that it could use Israel's playbook: The country that condones, if not foments, the terror attacks on India is a nuclear power.
Yet, when Indians watch Israel take the fight to the enemy, killing those who launched rockets against it and dismantling many of the sites from which the rockets flew, some cannot resist wishing that they could do something similar in Pakistan. India understands, though, that the collateral damage would be too high, the price in civilian lives unacceptable, and the risks of the conflict spiraling out of control too acute to contemplate such an option. So Indians place their trust in international diplomacy and watch, with ill-disguised wistfulness, as Israel does what they could never permit themselves to do.
Unfortunately, it is not just the average middle class urban Indian that suffers from "Israel envy". Indian strategists and military brass are also afflicted by it. Respected American South Asia expert Stephen Cohen of Washington's Brookings Institution recently told his audience: "Not a few Indian generals and strategists have told me that if only America would strip Pakistan of its nuclear weapons then the Indian army could destroy the Pakistan army and the whole thing would be over."
As we all know, no one came to the rescue of Gazans, or the Lebanese before them, and Israelis have, at least for now, essentially gotten away with mass murder and war crimes well documented by many international human rights advocacy groups. Many Israeli soldiers have also admitted to wanton disregard for civilian life and limb and the use of deadly force against unarmed Arab civilians as a matter of Israeli policy. Recently, Jewish-American Professor William I. Robinson of University of California Santa Barbara described Gaza as follows: "Gaza is Israel's Warsaw -- a vast concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians. We are witness to a slow-motion process of genocide,"
Do the critics of Pakistani nukes such as Hoodbhoy want to see India do to Pakistan what Israel has been doing to its neighbors? I certainly hope not!
Related Links:
Another Nuclear Anniversary
Can India "Do a Lebanon" in Pakistan?
India's Israel Envy
Gaza Compared With Nazi Concentration Camps
Gaza Bombing Witnesses Describe Horror
Labels:
ballistic missiles,
India,
nuclear arms,
Pakistan
Friday, May 29, 2009
The Godfather's Vito Corleone: A Metaphor for Uncle Sam Today?
"The Godfather Doctrine", a foreign policy parable by John Hulsman and Wes Mitchell, uses the Godfather movie metaphor to describe the current situation the United States is confronted with. As a superpower in relative decline like the Godfather in the movie, Uncle Sam faces a situation similar to the one Vito Corleone's sons Michael and Sonny and adopted son Tom Hagen, the consiglieri, faced right after the unexpected attack on the feared but aging Vito Corleone at the peak of his power. It compares the fruit stand attack on Vito by upstarts (Sollozzo) to the 911 attacks by Al Qaeda on the United States.
The metaphor in the book classifies Tom as a "liberal institutionalist" who wants to use the elaborate institutional network Vito Corleone created by making alliances with other crime families and buying out policemen, judges and politicians. This is the system that Tom, in his role as consiglieri, was responsible for maintaining. By sharing access to the policemen, judges and senators that (as Sollozzo puts it) the don “carries in his pocket like so many nickels and dimes,” the family managed to create a kind of Sicilian Bretton Woods—a system of political and economic public goods that benefited not only the Corleones, but the entire mafia community who joined hands with the Corleones.
Sonny's visceral response to the crisis is to advocate “toughness” through military action, a single-minded policy prescription for waging righteous war against the rest of the ungrateful mafia world. Dismissing Tom’s pleas that business will suffer, Sonny’s damn-the-torpedoes approach belies a deep-seated fear that the only way to reestablish the family’s dominance is preemptive action to eradicate all possible future threats to it. While such a strategy makes emotional sense following the attempted hit on his father, it runs counter to the long-term interests of the family. So Sonny represents "the necon" who goes on a rampage, much like the Bush administration did after 911, in response to the attack on his father and fails miserably and gets killed. By starting a gangland free-for-all in the wake of the hit on his father, Sonny unwittingly severs long-standing family alliances and unites much of the rest of the mafia world against the Corleones. The resulting war is one of choice rather than strategic necessity. Sonny’s rash instinct to use military power to solve his structural problems merely hastens the family’s decline.
Michael is the "realist" (Obama?) who survives to use a combination of hard power and soft power to maintain and enrich his crime family by co-opting other emerging crime families, which the book compares with the US attempts to co-opt the BRIC countries, representing Brazil, Russia, India and China among others. It is the strategy that ultimately saves the Corleone family from the Sollozzo threat and equips it for coping with multipolarity. Unlike Tom, whose labors as family lawyer have produced an exaggerated devotion to negotiation, and Sonny, whose position as untested heir apparent has produced a zeal for utilizing the family arsenal, Michael has no formulaic fixation on a particular policy instrument. Instead, his overriding goal is to protect the family’s interests and save it from impending ruin by any and all means necessary. In today’s foreign-policy terminology, Michael is a realist.
While addressing the family’s immediate need for a more versatile policy tool kit and shoring up its teetering alliances, Michael also takes steps to adjust the institutional playing field to the Corleones’ advantage on a more fundamental, long-term basis. Where Tom sees institutions as essentially static edifices that act as sources of power in their own right and Sonny sees them as needless hindrances to be bypassed, Michael sees institutions for what they truly are: conduits of influence that “reflect and ratify” but do not supplant deeper power realities. When the distribution of power shifts, institutions are sure to follow. As the Tataglias and Barzinis gain strength, Michael knows they will eventually overturn the existing order and replace it with an institutional rule book that better reflects their own needs and interests. Evidence that this process is already underway can be seen in the ease with which Sollozzo is able to enlist the support of a local precinct captain—the mafia equivalent of a UN mandate—when police loyalties formerly belonged to the Corleones. Similarly, Washington increasingly finds the very institutions it created after World War II being used against it by today’s rising powers, even as new structures are being built (like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization) that exclude the United States as a participant altogether.
Authors Hulsman and Mitchell compare Iran and North Korea, who defy US and the US-backed institutions such as the UN Security Council consistently, with Sollozzo, who challenges Vito Corleone. And the US doesn't quite know how to deal with them. Sollozzo realizes that fundamental changes are underway in the global system and knows that they give him greater latitude for defying the Corleones than he had in the past. As Sollozzo tells Tom, “The old man is slipping; ten years ago I couldn’t have gotten to him.”
I think the elaborate international alliances and institutions that US has built over 60 years ago, such as UN Security Council, NATO, World Bank, OECD, WTO, IMF, IAEA etc, through which America exercises tremendous power and control, are being weakened partly due to America's own missteps, and my guess is that these alliances and institutions will not survive as they are today. There will be a huge realignment of nations, as the powerful new players, including China, Russia, Germany, Japan, Brazil, India, South Africa want greater say in the affairs of the world. So do the Iranians, the Koreans and the Arabs.
So the only way the US can retain significant power and influence is by co-opting some of these emerging nations. The ones that seems ready to play ball are India and established economic powers like Germany and Japan, who have economically benefited from globalization under the US leadership. Others, such as Russia, China and Brazil, who have also benefited from globalization, are not willing to be co-opted by the US.
In my opinion, India appears to be well on its way to join the US as a close ally in this emerging new multipolar world. There is a burgeoning US-India relationship in almost all spheres. Indian Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh summed it up well when he said to former President Bush on his visit to the White House last year, "The people of India deeply love you."
The Prime Minister continued with the theme of affection and gratitude by adding, “In the last four and half years that I have been Prime Minister, I have been the recipient of your generosity, your affection, your friendship. It means a lot to me and to the people of India.”
Later, India's Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon explained: “I think, if you look at the public opinion polls, the ratings for President Bush are higher in India than in any other country. That is the factual basis.”
As the US-China rivalry grows and US and India continue to build ever closer ties, it is very likely that Pakistan will be forced to make a choice and grow away from the US and closer to China in the years ahead. This decision will be driven partly by the powerful anti-US currents in Pakistan's public opinion.
The book "The Godfather Doctrine" paints the United States as a power in relative decline, and it forecasts the emergence of a new, multi-polar world, with US being one of many power centers. In all likelihood, America will still be quite strong and powerful for a while, but its writ will no longer be unchallenged. It will have to rely on support from other powers to deal with the Solozzos (Iran, North Korea, al Qaeda etc.) of the world.
As you can see, the drama in real life is not quite over yet. Let's see if the metaphor makes sense as it plays itself out.
Here's a video clip from the movie:
Related Links:
Pax Corleone
The Godfather movie
Manmohan Singh Professes Love of America
Friday, May 22, 2009
Aid, Trade, Investments and Remittances in Asia and Africa
Relief organizations have calculated that as much as 75% of foreign aid by industrialized nations is directly tied to promoting exports of goods and services that support jobs in donor nations, achieving greater trade access in receiving countries or other economic and political strategies. Some of the aid comes with so many strings attached, including preferential tendering on contracts and the hiring of expensive consultants, that only 30-40% of dollar value is ever realized for the intended recipients. Then the rampant official corruption in the developing world further eats away at a big chunk of what is left. To make matters worse, the increasing percentages of budgets and GDP claimed by debt repayments take away money needed for basic human development needs, such as education and healthcare, in the developing world.
In the United States for example, most of the food aid, including the additional $770m food aid last year, for the poor countries requires the aid recipients to purchase food from the US agribusiness. These funds do not help the farmers in the poor nations grow food for the countries to become less dependent on foreign help. The US farm lobby continues to flex its muscle and enrich itself, without regard for the severity of the hunger crisis in the poor nations resulting from sharp increase in food prices. Three years ago, farmers and their allies in Congress effectively destroyed an effort by the Bush administration to begin the switch to untied food aid. The current composition of US Congress is no different, as far as the overwhelming power of the farm lobby is concerned.
European governments switched to giving all-cash donations for food in the mid-1990s, arguing that cash allows more flexibility in responding to crises and that the U.S. uses its food aid as a form of farm subsidy. But the Europeans also continue to erect various barriers to food imports from poor nations that could improve the viability of agriculture in many Asian and African countries.
Private donations abroad by Americans, including pledges to charities and churches and disbursements from corporate foundations, now are three times as large as America's official development assistance of $20 billion, and there is every indication this trend will continue. Washington's contribution looks even more miserly when the ODA data are broken down. Here are some basic facts about US foreign assistance:
1. Less than half of aid from the United States goes to the poorest countries.
2. The largest recipients are strategic allies such as Egypt, Israel, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
3. Israel is the richest country to receive the highest per capita U.S. assistance ($77 per Israeli compared to $3 per person in poor countries).
4. Even after the planned tripling of the US aid to $1.5 billion a year to Pakistan, it still amounts to about $8 per Pakistani.
According to Asia Times, last year only five of the 22 countries considered industrialized - Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Sweden - achieved the donor benchmark of allocating 0.7% of GNP to ODA. The benchmark was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 under the UN Agenda 21 program for eradicating poverty through development assistance. No other countries have even come close to meeting the target.
France managed 0.41% of GNP last year, the United Kingdom 0.34%, Germany 0.28%, Canada 0.26%, Spain 0.25% and Australia 0.25%. Japan, the only Asian participant, came in a lowly 19th with a paltry 0.2%, maintaining a reduced ODA commitment that dates back to 2001.
Dambisa Moyo, a former economist at Goldman Sachs, and the author of "Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa.", recently argued in a Wall Street Journal OpEd that "money from rich countries has trapped many African nations in a cycle of corruption, slower economic growth and poverty. Cutting off the flow would be far more beneficial."
She goes on to say, "Giving alms to Africa remains one of the biggest ideas of our time -- millions march for it, governments are judged by it, celebrities proselytize the need for it. Calls for more aid to Africa are growing louder, with advocates pushing for doubling the roughly $50 billion of international assistance that already goes to Africa each year.
Yet evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that aid to Africa has made the poor poorer, and the growth slower. The insidious aid culture has left African countries more debt-laden, more inflation-prone, more vulnerable to the vagaries of the currency markets and more unattractive to higher-quality investment. It's increased the risk of civil conflict and unrest (the fact that over 60% of sub-Saharan Africa's population is under the age of 24 with few economic prospects is a cause for worry). Aid is an unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster."
Last year, remittances to developing nations grew by 8.8% to $305 billion, more than three times the official development aid, according to World Bank.
Official development assistance received by Pakistan has not been particularly effective, according to media reports attributed to UN findings. A United Nations report titled "U.N. reforms and civil society engagements" in 2008 claimed that Pakistan has received 58 billion dollars in foreign aid from 1950 to 1999, however it systematically underperformed on most of the social and political indicators. The report further added, "If Pakistan had invested all the ODA (official development assistance) during this period at a real rate of six percent, it would have a stock of assets equal to 239 billion dollars in 1998, many times the current external debt."
At the end of calender year 2008 in Pakistan, remittances topped 7 billion dollars, an increase of 17 per cent year over year, led by higher remittances from oil-rich GCC countries, which grew by 30 per cent year on year. Similarly, FDI inflows jumped 100 per cent year over year to 708 million dollars in December, 2008, as the telecom, oil and gas, and financial-services sectors continued to attract foreign inventors, according a report in the Nation newspaper. Annual cash remittances from overseas Pakistanis and foreign direct investments (FDI) in Pakistan earlier this decade have been far larger and much more significant in its rapid growth than all of the foreign aid put together.
Last year, remittances to various other Asian countries were as follows: $8.9 billion for Bangladesh, $27 billion for China, $30 billion for India, $6.5 billion for Indonesia, $2.2 billion for Nepal, $1.8 billion for Malaysia, $16.4 billion for the Philippines, $2.7 billion for Sri Lanka, $5.5 billion for Vietnam and $1.8 billion for Thailand, according to International Labour Organization estimates.
While recognizing that there is no one silver bullet to alleviate poverty, microfinancing, along with social entrepreneurship, is becoming an essential component of non-government efforts in Pakistan and other developing nations to empower ordinary people toward self-reliance by lifting them out of poverty and teaching them the right skills to help themselves. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” This proverb has guided the efforts of late Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan, acclaimed Pakistani social scientist and founder of Orangi Pilot Project. Supported by private foundations working in Pakistan, all efforts at alleviating poverty should be guided by this proverb that captures the essence of self-reliance.
While government and multilateral financial institutional programs do help to some extent, it is the privatization of aid, trade, remittances and investments for the poor through various investors and donors, such as private corporation, foundations and the immigrants working in the rich countries, that provides the best hope to ensure that the funds and the practical benefits reach the intended recipients. Such a strategy minimizes the role of the politicians and the corrupt officials in both the donor and the recipient nations.
Related Links:
Microfinance in Pakistan
PIDE Report on FDI in Pakistan
Foreign Remittances Help Developing World
Foreign Aid Continues to Pour in Resurgent India
US Food Aid and the Farm Lobby
Dambisa Moyo: Aid to Africa
Rampant Corruption in Construction Industry
Obama's Farm Subsidy Cuts Meet Stiff Resistance
Global Slowdown Hits Foreign Workers
In the United States for example, most of the food aid, including the additional $770m food aid last year, for the poor countries requires the aid recipients to purchase food from the US agribusiness. These funds do not help the farmers in the poor nations grow food for the countries to become less dependent on foreign help. The US farm lobby continues to flex its muscle and enrich itself, without regard for the severity of the hunger crisis in the poor nations resulting from sharp increase in food prices. Three years ago, farmers and their allies in Congress effectively destroyed an effort by the Bush administration to begin the switch to untied food aid. The current composition of US Congress is no different, as far as the overwhelming power of the farm lobby is concerned.
European governments switched to giving all-cash donations for food in the mid-1990s, arguing that cash allows more flexibility in responding to crises and that the U.S. uses its food aid as a form of farm subsidy. But the Europeans also continue to erect various barriers to food imports from poor nations that could improve the viability of agriculture in many Asian and African countries.
Private donations abroad by Americans, including pledges to charities and churches and disbursements from corporate foundations, now are three times as large as America's official development assistance of $20 billion, and there is every indication this trend will continue. Washington's contribution looks even more miserly when the ODA data are broken down. Here are some basic facts about US foreign assistance:
1. Less than half of aid from the United States goes to the poorest countries.
2. The largest recipients are strategic allies such as Egypt, Israel, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
3. Israel is the richest country to receive the highest per capita U.S. assistance ($77 per Israeli compared to $3 per person in poor countries).
4. Even after the planned tripling of the US aid to $1.5 billion a year to Pakistan, it still amounts to about $8 per Pakistani.
According to Asia Times, last year only five of the 22 countries considered industrialized - Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Sweden - achieved the donor benchmark of allocating 0.7% of GNP to ODA. The benchmark was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 under the UN Agenda 21 program for eradicating poverty through development assistance. No other countries have even come close to meeting the target.
France managed 0.41% of GNP last year, the United Kingdom 0.34%, Germany 0.28%, Canada 0.26%, Spain 0.25% and Australia 0.25%. Japan, the only Asian participant, came in a lowly 19th with a paltry 0.2%, maintaining a reduced ODA commitment that dates back to 2001.
Dambisa Moyo, a former economist at Goldman Sachs, and the author of "Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa.", recently argued in a Wall Street Journal OpEd that "money from rich countries has trapped many African nations in a cycle of corruption, slower economic growth and poverty. Cutting off the flow would be far more beneficial."
She goes on to say, "Giving alms to Africa remains one of the biggest ideas of our time -- millions march for it, governments are judged by it, celebrities proselytize the need for it. Calls for more aid to Africa are growing louder, with advocates pushing for doubling the roughly $50 billion of international assistance that already goes to Africa each year.
Yet evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that aid to Africa has made the poor poorer, and the growth slower. The insidious aid culture has left African countries more debt-laden, more inflation-prone, more vulnerable to the vagaries of the currency markets and more unattractive to higher-quality investment. It's increased the risk of civil conflict and unrest (the fact that over 60% of sub-Saharan Africa's population is under the age of 24 with few economic prospects is a cause for worry). Aid is an unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster."
Last year, remittances to developing nations grew by 8.8% to $305 billion, more than three times the official development aid, according to World Bank.
Official development assistance received by Pakistan has not been particularly effective, according to media reports attributed to UN findings. A United Nations report titled "U.N. reforms and civil society engagements" in 2008 claimed that Pakistan has received 58 billion dollars in foreign aid from 1950 to 1999, however it systematically underperformed on most of the social and political indicators. The report further added, "If Pakistan had invested all the ODA (official development assistance) during this period at a real rate of six percent, it would have a stock of assets equal to 239 billion dollars in 1998, many times the current external debt."
At the end of calender year 2008 in Pakistan, remittances topped 7 billion dollars, an increase of 17 per cent year over year, led by higher remittances from oil-rich GCC countries, which grew by 30 per cent year on year. Similarly, FDI inflows jumped 100 per cent year over year to 708 million dollars in December, 2008, as the telecom, oil and gas, and financial-services sectors continued to attract foreign inventors, according a report in the Nation newspaper. Annual cash remittances from overseas Pakistanis and foreign direct investments (FDI) in Pakistan earlier this decade have been far larger and much more significant in its rapid growth than all of the foreign aid put together.
Last year, remittances to various other Asian countries were as follows: $8.9 billion for Bangladesh, $27 billion for China, $30 billion for India, $6.5 billion for Indonesia, $2.2 billion for Nepal, $1.8 billion for Malaysia, $16.4 billion for the Philippines, $2.7 billion for Sri Lanka, $5.5 billion for Vietnam and $1.8 billion for Thailand, according to International Labour Organization estimates.
While recognizing that there is no one silver bullet to alleviate poverty, microfinancing, along with social entrepreneurship, is becoming an essential component of non-government efforts in Pakistan and other developing nations to empower ordinary people toward self-reliance by lifting them out of poverty and teaching them the right skills to help themselves. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” This proverb has guided the efforts of late Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan, acclaimed Pakistani social scientist and founder of Orangi Pilot Project. Supported by private foundations working in Pakistan, all efforts at alleviating poverty should be guided by this proverb that captures the essence of self-reliance.
While government and multilateral financial institutional programs do help to some extent, it is the privatization of aid, trade, remittances and investments for the poor through various investors and donors, such as private corporation, foundations and the immigrants working in the rich countries, that provides the best hope to ensure that the funds and the practical benefits reach the intended recipients. Such a strategy minimizes the role of the politicians and the corrupt officials in both the donor and the recipient nations.
Related Links:
Microfinance in Pakistan
PIDE Report on FDI in Pakistan
Foreign Remittances Help Developing World
Foreign Aid Continues to Pour in Resurgent India
US Food Aid and the Farm Lobby
Dambisa Moyo: Aid to Africa
Rampant Corruption in Construction Industry
Obama's Farm Subsidy Cuts Meet Stiff Resistance
Global Slowdown Hits Foreign Workers
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Pakistani Arms Enabled Lanka Defeat of LTTE
President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka celebrated victory Tuesday after defeating the LTTE's 25-year long and bloody insurgency against the Lankan government. LTTE terrorists' main contribution to the world of terror is their invention of the dreaded explosives belt that unleashed the scourge of world-wide suicide bombings.
Initially trained and supported by Raw, the Indian intelligence agency, in the 1980s, the Tamil Tigers met their bloody end at the hands of Lankan military using arms manufactured and supplied by Pakistan.
Alarmed by reports of Pakistani arms supplies to Sri Lanka in 2008, India said it wanted Sri Lanka to treat Tamils with dignity and also voiced concern that Colombo’s arms purchases may upset New Delhi’s “pre-eminent position” in South Asia. “We are facing a situation where the ceasefire (in Sri Lanka) could collapse. This could lead to a flashpoint,” National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan said while delivering the 25th Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal memorial lecture.
India refused to supply what it considered "offensive weapons" to Sri Lanka and opposed any military solution of the "ethnic conflict" while urging Colombo to devolve autonomy to the minorities.
According the News quoting reliable sources in Pakistan, military cooperation between Sri Lanka and Pakistan has grown significantly in recent years as Islamabad, unlike New Delhi, has had no problems supplying Sri Lanka's army state-of-the-art weaponry to accelerate its counter-insurgency operations against the LTTE which finally ended with the killing of the most wanted Tamil guerrilla fighter Vellupillai Prabhakaran. The sources say it was exactly a year ago in the first week of May 2008 that Sri Lankan Army Chief General Fonseka came to Pakistan with his shopping list of high tech arms for the Lankan armed forces, who were engaged in an intense battle with the Tamil Tiger rebels at the time.
After Fonseca's visit, Pakistan sold 22 Al-Khalid tanks to Sri Lanka in a deal worth over US$100 million. Sri Lanka also purchased Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher System (MBRLS), cluster bombs, deep penetration bombs and rockets and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) from Pakistan, according to various reports. In fact, Sri Lanka, along with some Middle Eastern nations, has now become one of the largest buyers of Pakistani arms in the last few years.
In a July 2008 interview with Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, Major General Mohammad Farooq, Director General of the Defense Export Promotion Organization, indicated that collaboration with the United States had increased in manufacturing armored personnel carriers "with transfer of technology". There have been unconfirmed reports that Pakistan is manufacturing Humvees for the US military in Afghanistan. General Farooq also claimed that Pakistan's defense exports have tripled to around $300 million because of the quality of its ammunition, anti-tank guided missiles, rocket launchers and shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. He said exports to South Asian, Middle Eastern and African countries had increased significantly.
On Jan 19, 2009, in a meeting between Pakistani Defense Secretary Lt-Gen (retd) Syed Athar Ali and his visiting Lankan counterpart Gotabhaya Rajapakse, the brother of Sri Lankan president, in Rawalpindi, an agreement was reached to enhance cooperation in military training, exercises and intelligence sharing regarding terrorism. The agreement came amidst Sri Lankan media reports that the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) pilots had participated in several successful air strikes against LTTE military bases in August 2008. These reports further claimed that a highly trained group of the Pakistani armed forces officers is posted in Colombo to guide the Sri Lankan security forces in their counter-insurgency operations against the Tamil Tigers.
Back in 2000, when LTTE offensive code-named "Operation Ceaseless Waves" overran Sri Lankan military positions in the north and captured the Elephant Pass Base and entered Jaffna, the Sri Lankans received Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher System (MBRLS) and other high tech weaponry from Pakistan on short notice.
The MBRLS and weapons and ammunition, including artillery shells and multi-barrel rocket launchers, were airlifted in an emergency operation from Karachi to Colombo in May 2000. Later, in 2006, the Sri Lankan authorities had again sought Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher System (MBRLS) and other advanced weapons from Pakistan when Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited Pakistan in March 2006 along with an 80-member delegation that included some high ranking military officials. During his talks with the Pakistani leaders, the Sri Lankan President had sought military help from Islamabad to effectively put an end to the LTTE separatist movement.
Indian analyst and former RAW chief B. Raman recently summed up India's geopolitical stance toward Sri Lamka in the following words: "India's interest in the island is partly emotional and partly strategic.The emotional interest arises from the fact that India has a large Tamil population in Tamil Nadu, a southern province, who have ethnically and linguistically much in common with the Tamils of Sri Lanka. Any policies of the Government of Sri Lanka, which affect the Sri Lankan Tamils, have an echo in Tamil Nadu. Hence, the close Indian interest in the problems and the well-being of the Sri Lankan Tamils. Strategically, the Sri Lankan Government has been cultivating China and Pakistan to keep India in check. It has good political and economic relations with China. It has invited China to construct a modern port in Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka. It has invited the Chinese to help it in gas exploration in areas which are close to India. Similarly, there is a growing military-military relationship between Sri Lanka and Pakistan, which worries India."
What has happened in Sri Lanka this week is India's moment of truth, as B.Raman puts it. Sri Lanka has triumphed over LTTE terrorists in spite of India, not because of it. Pakistan, along with China, has clearly played a key role as Sri Lanka's main arms supplier and trainer in ensuring LTTE's defeat, and India is clearly not happy with how the events played out leading to Sri Lanka's win. This new reality highlights the importance of Pakistan as a regional player in South Asia and upsets what India's national security adviser called New Delhi's "pre-eminent Position" in the region.
Related Links:
How Sri Lanka's Rebels Build a Suicide Bomber
India Worried By Sri Lanka's Arms Buying
Pakistan's Defense Industry
War's End in Sri Lanka
Pakistan's Crucial Role in Death of Tamil Tigers
"Loose NBCs" in Pakistan
America's Defense Focus on Counter-insurgency
Sri Lanka: India's Moment of Truth
Labels:
Arms Exports,
India,
Pakistan,
Sri Lanka,
Tamil Tigers
Challenges of Indian Democracy
With the clear mandate for his Congress Party in recently concluded general elections, Indian Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh has won the right and responsibility to deal with huge challenges in front of him. In addition to the well-known social problems of hunger, poverty, lack of sanitation and poor infrastructure, Mr. Singh has to contend with the effects of the oppressive and ingrained caste system and religious intolerance as well as the growing nexus between crime and politics in Indian democracy. The new parliament has elected 153 tainted members, some of whom have been convicted or accused of serious crimes, including murder and rape.
Nexus of Crime and Politics:
About 153 members of the new Indian parliament have either been convicted and appealed or currently accused of various crimes. A major problem is that individuals charged with even the most serious crimes are allowed to stand if they have been convicted but their cases are under appeal, according to Times Online. “The speed of the Indian judicial system means it can take 30 years to complete a case – easily long enough to live out a full political career,” Mr Himanshu Jha, of the National Social Watch Coalition, said to the Times Online recently.
This nexus of crime and politics in India developed in two stages - in the first stage, Indian politicians used criminal elements and gangsters to control polling stations and intimidate their rivals; this gave legitimacy to these people and they decided to contest elections for themselves rather than merely act as muscle men (baahubali) for other politicians. There are many examples of this pattern, such as Munna Shukla and Shahabudin in Bihar, Raju Bhaiyya in U.P and Arun Gawli of Mumbai.
Most Indian politicians have used their election wins to significantly enrich themselves, according to their own pre-election declarations of assets. For example, the comparison of assets of candidates who won in 2004 and sought re-elections in 2009 shows that the wealth of UP politicians has grown by 559%, over five times, in five years, second only to their Karnataka counterparts who registered a growth of 693% in the same period, according to Sulekha.com.
The Caste System:
The entire culture and governance of India is heavily influenced by the caste system that legitimizes abuse and exploitation of one group of people by another. It plays a significant role in voting patterns as well. Indians usually vote their caste rather than cast their votes. There is a counter argument to this concept of oppression: What about the lower caste politicians who also have risen to authority? The response is: Can they be different from the social milieu they belong to? Other issues include the lack of democratic structures inside India’s political parties and a culture of corruption fostered by a stifling level of bureaucracy.
Social Deprivation:
India, often described as peaceful, stable and prosperous in the Western media, remains home to the largest number of poor and hungry people in the world.
The UN Millennium Develop Goals listed below remain distant for the Indian people:
1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2 Achieve universal primary education
3 Promote gender equality and empower women
4 Reduce child mortality
5 Improve maternal health
6 Combat HIV/Aids, malaria, and other diseases
7 Ensure environmental sustainability
8 Develop a global partnership for development
About one-third of the world's extremely poor people live in India. More than 450 million Indians exist on less than $1.25 a day, according to the World Bank. It also has a higher proportion of its population living on less than $2 per day than even sub-Saharan Africa. India has about 42% of the population living below the new international poverty line of $1.25 per day. The number of Indian poor also constitute 33% of the global poor, which is pegged at 1.4 billion people, according to a Times of India news report. More than 6 million of those desperately poor Indians live in Mumbai alone, representing about half the residents of the nation's financial capital. They live in super-sized slums and improvised housing juxtaposed with the shining new skyscrapers that symbolize India's resurgence. According to the World Bank and the UN Development Program (UNDP), 22% of Pakistan's population is classified as poor.
There is widespread hunger and malnutrition in all parts of India. India ranks 66th on the 2008 Global Hunger Index of 88 countries while Pakistan is slightly better at 61 and Bangladesh slightly worse at 70. The first India State Hunger Index (Ishi) report in 2008 found that Madhya Pradesh had the most severe level of hunger in India, comparable to Chad and Ethiopia. Four states — Punjab, Kerala, Haryana and Assam — fell in the 'serious' category. "Affluent" Gujarat, 13th on the Indian list is below Haiti, ranked 69. The authors said India's poor performance was primarily due to its relatively high levels of child malnutrition and under-nourishment resulting from calorie deficient diets.
India might be an emerging economic power, but it is way behind Pakistan, Bangladesh and even Afghanistan in providing basic sanitation facilities, a key reason behind the death of 2.1 million children under five in the country.
Lizette Burgers, chief of water and environment sanitation of the Unicef, recently said India is making progress in providing sanitation but it lags behind most of the other countries in South Asia. A former Indian minister Mr Raghuvansh Prasad Singh told the BBC that more than 65% of India's rural population defecated in the open, along roadsides, railway tracks and fields, generating huge amounts of excrement every day.
Comparison with Pakistan:
Unlike Indian democracy where middle class has a bigger role, Pakistani democracy remains largely dominated by the feudal class. Pakistani parliament is dominated by big landowners who have a sense of entitlement to rule, even though they pay no taxes on their farm income. They routinely escape prosecution for the crimes they commit against their own people. When they do get caught and charged with serious crimes, they use political influence and their deal-making power to beat the rap. Musharraf's US-sponsored amnesty (dubbed NRO) for late Benazir Bhutto, her widower Asif Zardari and other political leaders now in power offers a prime example of how the politicians are not held to account for serious crimes of corruption and murder. Some of the Taliban in Swat used the widespread grievances of the tenant farmers against their landlords as justification for Shariah-based Nizam-e-Adl to provide speedy justice.
Future of Indian Democracy:
Majority of the poor and rural Indians are sustaining democracy at a great cost to themselves in terms of the grinding poverty that defines their meager existence. Contrasting Indian democracy with Chinese one-party rule, a British minister recently said that the number of poor people had dropped in the one-party communist state by 70% since 1990 but had risen in the world's biggest democracy by 5%. No one knows how long will the average Indian have to wait before the fruits of democracy to reach him or her. In the meanwhile, Maoists (and other revolutionaries) are gaining momentum and threatening a revolution to bring about a visible improvement in the lives of the poor.
At a minimum, Indian government should make the necessary investments to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals. As the UNICEF said last year, unless India achieves major improvements in health, nutrition, water and sanitation, education, gender equality and child protection, the global efforts to reach the MDGs will fail.
Here's a video clip on grinding poverty in India:
Here's a video clip on India's massive corruption:
Here's a video about Maoists in India:
Related Links:
Is Indian Democracy Overrated?
Mumbai's Slumdog Millionaire
Can India Do a Lebanon in Pakistan?
Poor Sanitation in India
UN MDGs in Pakistan
Stable, Peaceful, Prosperous India
No Toilet, No Seat in India
Poverty Tours in India, Brazil and South Africa
South Asia's War on Hunger Takes Back Seat
Grinding Poverty in Resurgent India
Pakistani Children's Plight
Poverty in Pakistan
Monday, May 18, 2009
Young Pakistanis Inspire With Public Service
Alongside the usual negative and depressing coverage about Pakistan that fills the electronic media and newsprint in the West these days, I am really happy to see a rare but hopeful and inspiring story from Lahore about public service and volunteerism in today's New York Times. The youth group epitomizes what it means to be a responsible citizen of Pakistan. It fits right in with my posts encouraging Pakistanis to light candles rather than curse darkness. Here is the NY Times story:
LAHORE, Pakistan — The idea was simple, but in Pakistan, a country full of talk and short on action, it smacked of rebellion.
A group of young Pakistani friends, sick of hearing their families complain about the government, decided to spite them by taking matters into their own hands: every Sunday they would grab shovels, go out into their city, and pick up garbage.
It was a strange thing to do, particularly for such students from elite private schools, who would normally spend Sunday afternoons relaxing in air-conditioned homes.
But the students were inspired by the recent success of the lawyers’ movement, which used a national protest to press the government to reinstate the country’s chief justice, and their rush of public consciousness was irrepressible.
“Everybody keeps blaming the government, but no one actually does anything,” said Shoaib Ahmed, 21, one of the organizers. “So we thought, why don’t we?”
So they got on Facebook (Responsible Citizens-Zimmedar Shehri group) and invited all their friends to a Sunday trash picking. Trash, Mr. Ahmed said, “is this most basic thing. It’s not controversial, and you can easily do it.”
Pakistan is a country plagued by problems, like Islamic extremism and poverty. But these young people are another face, a curious new generation that looks skeptically on their parents’ privilege and holds mullahs and military generals in equal contempt.
“The youth of Pakistan wants to change things,” said Shahram Azhar, the lead singer for Laal, a Pakistani rock band, reflecting an attitude that is typical of this rebellious younger generation.
“The reason the Taliban is ruling Swat,” he said referring to a valley north of Islamabad where Islamic extremists took control this year, “is because they are organized. We need to organize, too.”
“The only answer to Pakistan’s problems,” he added, “is a broad-based people’s movement.”
The trash movement, which calls itself Responsible Citizens (Zimmedar Shehri), does not yet qualify as broad, but it still drew a respectable crowd on a recent Sunday, considering the heat (above 90 degrees) and the time (around 4 p.m.). Mr. Ahmed and his friends were doling out trash bags they had bought for the occasion. About 40 people had gathered. Some were wearing masks. All were carrying shovels.
They set their sights low. The area of operation, Ghalib Market, was modest, a quiet traffic circle in central Lahore encircled by shops, a cricket field and a mosque.
It was not one of the dirtiest parts of the city, but the group felt attached to it, as they had cleaned it in the past, and wanted to see if their actions were having any effect.
The first time they cleaned there was like raking leaves on a windy autumn day.
“We collected, like, 30 bags, but there was no visible difference,” Mr. Ahmed said.
But they talked with local shopkeepers, in a kind of trash outreach, asking them to walk their garbage to the trash bin. Those connections, Mr. Ahmed said, were actually the point of the cleaning — setting an example for others to follow.
“The major problem people have here is that there are no bins,” said Murtaza Khwaja, a 21-year-old medical student.
Actually, the problem was deeper. A long-term cycle of corrupt, weak governments interrupted by military coups has caused Pakistan’s political muscles to atrophy, leaving Pakistani society, particularly its poor, hopeless that it will ever receive the services — education, water, electricity, health — that it so desperately needs.
“People say, ‘This is nice, but things will never change,’ ” Mr. Khwaja said, pointing to a hamburger seller who he said was particularly pessimistic. “There is a hopelessness.”
That is where the trash cleaning comes in. Locals find it perplexing and helpful in equal measures. One enthusiast who met the group on its first outing in March, Muhamed Zahid, has come to every one since. One man passing by in a rickshaw dismounted to help them shovel for a while.
The men in the mosque, on the other hand, were picky, wanting the young people to clean the mosque but not the surrounding area.
“They said, ‘We already have Christians doing that for us in the morning,’ ” Mr. Khwaja said. Christians are a minority in Pakistan, and those who have no education often work in the lowest-paid jobs, like collecting trash, sweeping streets or fixing sewers.
On Sunday, Malik Waqas, a 16-year-old who was driving by on a moped, stopped to watch a cluster of young people shoveling what looked like old food.
“It’s good,” Mr. Waqas said shyly. When asked why, he said, “Because people care.”
But that also confuses passers-by, many of whom stop to gape at the young people, who, in their jeans, T-shirts and sunglasses, look more New York than Pakistan. On Sunday, three men in flowing, traditional garb leaned on a fence staring at the students while they cleaned.
Mr. Khwaja’s mother, who had also come to clean, was commanding like an army general, trying to get them to join in.
“Most of them just mock us,” she said. “ ‘What are you women doing?’ ”
But the youngsters seemed to understand the men’s perspective.
“They’re like, ‘Why are these rich people cleaning this up? It’s probably a college project,’ ” one student said.
That brought the students to the most serious discussion of the day, one that is arguably Pakistan’s biggest problem: the gap between rich and poor. Generations of poverty and a system of substandard education that keeps people in it have created fertile ground for Islamic militancy, which now poses a serious threat to the stability of the country.
“Here, if you’re poor, you’re not even a human being,” said Pavel Qaiser. “It’s the culture we have — one landlord and the peasants working under him.”
And here was a revelation: the trash picking, which the students had intended as an example for shopkeepers and residents, was actually an exercise for themselves.
“The rich don’t care, the poor can’t do anything, so it’s up to the middle class to make the change,” Mr. Khwaja said, as a group of friends standing near him nodded in agreement. “We have to lead by example. To change it from inside.”
He continued, his voice urgent, as if he were giving a speech: “We want to tell everyone, ‘You have the right. For 60 years everyone has told you that you don’t, but you do!’ ”
Then he bemoaned the small number of friends they were able to gather for the trash cleaning. For those who didn’t come, he had a message. “You want to do something? Pick up a shovel.”
Related Links:
Light a Candle, Do Not Curse Darkness
Facebook Group-Zimmedar Shehri
Helping Children Become Responsible Citizens
Orangi Pilot Project
Three Cups of Tea
Volunteerism in America
Dr. Akhtar Hamid Khan's Vision
LAHORE, Pakistan — The idea was simple, but in Pakistan, a country full of talk and short on action, it smacked of rebellion.
A group of young Pakistani friends, sick of hearing their families complain about the government, decided to spite them by taking matters into their own hands: every Sunday they would grab shovels, go out into their city, and pick up garbage.
It was a strange thing to do, particularly for such students from elite private schools, who would normally spend Sunday afternoons relaxing in air-conditioned homes.
But the students were inspired by the recent success of the lawyers’ movement, which used a national protest to press the government to reinstate the country’s chief justice, and their rush of public consciousness was irrepressible.
“Everybody keeps blaming the government, but no one actually does anything,” said Shoaib Ahmed, 21, one of the organizers. “So we thought, why don’t we?”
So they got on Facebook (Responsible Citizens-Zimmedar Shehri group) and invited all their friends to a Sunday trash picking. Trash, Mr. Ahmed said, “is this most basic thing. It’s not controversial, and you can easily do it.”
Pakistan is a country plagued by problems, like Islamic extremism and poverty. But these young people are another face, a curious new generation that looks skeptically on their parents’ privilege and holds mullahs and military generals in equal contempt.
“The youth of Pakistan wants to change things,” said Shahram Azhar, the lead singer for Laal, a Pakistani rock band, reflecting an attitude that is typical of this rebellious younger generation.
“The reason the Taliban is ruling Swat,” he said referring to a valley north of Islamabad where Islamic extremists took control this year, “is because they are organized. We need to organize, too.”
“The only answer to Pakistan’s problems,” he added, “is a broad-based people’s movement.”
The trash movement, which calls itself Responsible Citizens (Zimmedar Shehri), does not yet qualify as broad, but it still drew a respectable crowd on a recent Sunday, considering the heat (above 90 degrees) and the time (around 4 p.m.). Mr. Ahmed and his friends were doling out trash bags they had bought for the occasion. About 40 people had gathered. Some were wearing masks. All were carrying shovels.
They set their sights low. The area of operation, Ghalib Market, was modest, a quiet traffic circle in central Lahore encircled by shops, a cricket field and a mosque.
It was not one of the dirtiest parts of the city, but the group felt attached to it, as they had cleaned it in the past, and wanted to see if their actions were having any effect.
The first time they cleaned there was like raking leaves on a windy autumn day.
“We collected, like, 30 bags, but there was no visible difference,” Mr. Ahmed said.
But they talked with local shopkeepers, in a kind of trash outreach, asking them to walk their garbage to the trash bin. Those connections, Mr. Ahmed said, were actually the point of the cleaning — setting an example for others to follow.
“The major problem people have here is that there are no bins,” said Murtaza Khwaja, a 21-year-old medical student.
Actually, the problem was deeper. A long-term cycle of corrupt, weak governments interrupted by military coups has caused Pakistan’s political muscles to atrophy, leaving Pakistani society, particularly its poor, hopeless that it will ever receive the services — education, water, electricity, health — that it so desperately needs.
“People say, ‘This is nice, but things will never change,’ ” Mr. Khwaja said, pointing to a hamburger seller who he said was particularly pessimistic. “There is a hopelessness.”
That is where the trash cleaning comes in. Locals find it perplexing and helpful in equal measures. One enthusiast who met the group on its first outing in March, Muhamed Zahid, has come to every one since. One man passing by in a rickshaw dismounted to help them shovel for a while.
The men in the mosque, on the other hand, were picky, wanting the young people to clean the mosque but not the surrounding area.
“They said, ‘We already have Christians doing that for us in the morning,’ ” Mr. Khwaja said. Christians are a minority in Pakistan, and those who have no education often work in the lowest-paid jobs, like collecting trash, sweeping streets or fixing sewers.
On Sunday, Malik Waqas, a 16-year-old who was driving by on a moped, stopped to watch a cluster of young people shoveling what looked like old food.
“It’s good,” Mr. Waqas said shyly. When asked why, he said, “Because people care.”
But that also confuses passers-by, many of whom stop to gape at the young people, who, in their jeans, T-shirts and sunglasses, look more New York than Pakistan. On Sunday, three men in flowing, traditional garb leaned on a fence staring at the students while they cleaned.
Mr. Khwaja’s mother, who had also come to clean, was commanding like an army general, trying to get them to join in.
“Most of them just mock us,” she said. “ ‘What are you women doing?’ ”
But the youngsters seemed to understand the men’s perspective.
“They’re like, ‘Why are these rich people cleaning this up? It’s probably a college project,’ ” one student said.
That brought the students to the most serious discussion of the day, one that is arguably Pakistan’s biggest problem: the gap between rich and poor. Generations of poverty and a system of substandard education that keeps people in it have created fertile ground for Islamic militancy, which now poses a serious threat to the stability of the country.
“Here, if you’re poor, you’re not even a human being,” said Pavel Qaiser. “It’s the culture we have — one landlord and the peasants working under him.”
And here was a revelation: the trash picking, which the students had intended as an example for shopkeepers and residents, was actually an exercise for themselves.
“The rich don’t care, the poor can’t do anything, so it’s up to the middle class to make the change,” Mr. Khwaja said, as a group of friends standing near him nodded in agreement. “We have to lead by example. To change it from inside.”
He continued, his voice urgent, as if he were giving a speech: “We want to tell everyone, ‘You have the right. For 60 years everyone has told you that you don’t, but you do!’ ”
Then he bemoaned the small number of friends they were able to gather for the trash cleaning. For those who didn’t come, he had a message. “You want to do something? Pick up a shovel.”
Related Links:
Light a Candle, Do Not Curse Darkness
Facebook Group-Zimmedar Shehri
Helping Children Become Responsible Citizens
Orangi Pilot Project
Three Cups of Tea
Volunteerism in America
Dr. Akhtar Hamid Khan's Vision
Labels:
Lahore,
Pakistan,
Public Service,
Volunteer service
Mumbai Stocks Fueled by Post-Election Optimism
In a resounding vote of confidence for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's continuing leadership, Indian and international investors are celebrating with 17% jump in the 30-share BSE index, or 2,110.79 points, to 14,284.21 points, for its highest close since Sept. 11. Trade was finally halted for Monday before noon.
Here are the key headlines from Reuters about strong and positive investor reaction in Mumbai:
* Stocks jump 17 pct, biggest rise in 17 years
* Circuit breakers halt trade twice; markets closed early
* Rupee up 9 percent from low in early March
* Morgan Stanley raises stock, growth projections
* Bond yields drop, stake sales seen to fund deficit
Next door in Pakistan, the investor reaction to news of the day was muted and the KSE-100 remained essentially flat. Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) was up in the morning but then the sellers came in on Monday and the benchmark KSE-100 Index closed 5 points down to 7,172.
Amidst major counterinsurgency operations in and around Swat Valley and growing refugee crisis, there are signs of optimism by investors and bond holders in Pakistan's economy. The KSE-100, Karachi's stock index, is up 27 percent this year, compared with a 12 percent gain in MSCI’s emerging-market stock index of 26 emerging economies, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and Venezuela. The Pakistani rupee, which declined 22 percent against the dollar last year, the second-worst performer in Asia, fell 1.8 percent this year.
Currently, KSE-100 companies are trading at a forward price-earnings multiple of about 5 versus Mumbai Sensex PE ratio of over 10. So a lot of the worst case pessimism is already reflected in the share prices of some of the high-quality blue-chip companies trading at Karachi stock exchange. Could it get worse? It's possible but not likely. There appears to be a lot more upside than downside at this time. Between 2001 and 2007, as Western governments fretted about Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of militants, the KSE-100 rose risen more than 10-fold. It is capable of repeating the same performance from the lows of this year.
According to Pakistaniat website, Pakistan’s trade deficit narrowed by almost 50% in March, as imports declined faster than exports. In the same month, worker remittances were a record high at US$743 million an increase of 23% over last year. While Japan’s exports plummeted by 50%, China’s by 26% and India’s by 33%, Pakistan’s exports were down by 25%. Even though, the competitive peer group is formidable, Pakistan is the best performer.
On the corporate profitability front, during the worst global down turn in a century, Pakistan’s corporate profitability of listed companies declined by a mere 3% in aggregate in the 3rd quarter of 2009.
At the end of calender year 2008, remittances topped 7 billion dollars, an increase of 17 per cent year over year, led by higher remittances from oil-rich GCC countries, which grew by 30 per cent year on year. Similarly, FDI inflows jumped 100 per cent year on year to 708 million dollars in December, 2008, as the telecom, oil and gas, and financial-services sectors continued to attract foreign inventors, according a report in the Nation newspaper.
Pakistani military's robust response to the rising militancy appears to be backed by a significant majority of the people. If the Pakistani political leadership can deal with its fall-out, such as the humanitarian crisis, and sustain the popular support for the ongoing military action, and the government executes a rational set of economic policies, it is quite reasonable to expect an economic rebound within a year.
Given strong underlying growth dynamics in South Asia, the negative feedback effects of the global financial crisis should be temporary as well. A relatively rapid rebound can be expected in 2010, with a projected revival of GDP growth to 7 per cent, spurring job growth again.
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Musharraf on CNN GPS With Fareed Zakaria
Last weekend on CNN GPS weekly show, Fareed Zakaria sat down with Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in an exclusive interview, aired on Sunday, May 17, 2009. Musharraf was the guest for the whole hour and they discussed his years in power and resignation, Pakistan's deadly struggle against the Taliban, strained relations between India and Pakistan, and Benazir Bhutto's death.
Plus, Musharraf explained what happened to America's $10 billion in aid to Pakistan over the last 10 years. Here's how Musharraf explained it:
"Five billion -- half of it -- is reimbursement for the services provided by Pakistan. It is not your money. It is our money.
So, let me say it again. Half of it, $5 billion, is our money. We provided services to you, so you are repaying us. So, $5 billion gone there.
Now we are left with $5 billion. Half of this $5 billion was meant for military, and the other half for social sector -- education, health and all that.
So, half of it, which was for military, was for -- I mean, it is pittance to maintain the helicopters, the air force, the ammunition that is being used to fight all these people. It is too less. And there was a time when, out of our 20 attack helicopters, only two were serviceable.
And I was -- I created a hue and cry. And then, only, could we get some support. So, that was for military support.
Now, people keep claiming that we are using all that on the eastern border against India. Now, that is a separate story altogether. Yes, indeed, our army has been maintained to have security against any threat."
Responding to a question on why the Taliban have gained strength in the last several years, Musharraf explained:
"...... -- they (Taliban) get their -- they are there because they are supporting in Afghanistan, because they are getting all their military hardware through Afghanistan. Where are they getting their -- the money comes through the drugs in Afghanistan. Arms comes from Afghanistan.
So, Pakistan is a victim of what is happening in Afghanistan.
The world and the United States, and whatever discussion we have had, is through Pakistan, and everything is in Pakistan. A third, a half of Afghanistan is under control of Taliban, of Mullah Omar.
If you control here, if you are successful against Taliban and al Qaeda in Pakistan, let me assure you, the battle is not over, because Afghanistan is Afghanistan, and they will continue. If you succeed in Afghanistan, you will succeed in Pakistan.
We have suffered because of what is happening in Afghanistan. And we still continue to suffer because of that. Our society, I would say, our social fabric has been torn, and we are trying to repair it.
So, the world must understand, and the world must help Pakistan repair this torn fabric of ours, national fabric, instead of criticizing -- why is Pakistan like this, Pakistan is spreading Talibanization. At this moment, we are lucky -- the world is lucky -- that we have this army and the ISI.
Now, instead of weakening them, abusing them, criticizing them, we must strengthen them. Because, if they don't deliver, who else is going to deliver? It will all fail.
So, therefore, don't criticize the ISI and army. They are suffering with all this, and yet, going ahead."
On the question of Pakistan's focus on threat from India, here is what Musharraf said:
"Well, we have to be balanced in our approach. On the eastern border, if Pakistan -- Pakistan's existence and security is under threat, when a big force like India is maintaining.
Let me now come into the military figures. They have about 33 infantry divisions. Twenty-four are on Pakistan borders. They have three armored divisions, all three against Pakistan borders. They have three mechanized divisions, all three against Pakistan borders.
Being a force commander, what would you do, when this huge force is there ready to attack you, and when they are saying that we are going to come and attack Pakistan, and when the public and the media is demanding that Pakistan should be punished and go and attack them?"
On Taliban threat versus Indian threat, Musharraf said:
"I think -- please, I think, Fareed, we must not try to teach the Pakistan army where is the threat coming from. They analyze things. We have conferences. They take very, very deliberate decisions. They know where the threat is down and when it is up. And they take action accordingly.
When the Indian threat was there, when Indians, now, after the Mumbai attack, were talking of -- after the parliament attack, initially, they brought the whole army on our borders in 2002. Yes, indeed, we took the whole army against them.
So, yes, we are looking after Taliban, but we have to look after the eastern border, also. So, the thoughts are divided.
So, please don't tell us that you are entered (ph). There has to be a balance according to the threat analysis. And this threat analysis is done by the army very, very regularly.
You analyze your threat wherever it is coming from, whether it is Taliban or Indians, and take balanced action."
Here is the latest transcript of Global Public Square appearance of President Musharraf on May 17, 2009:
FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST, GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. Welcome to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria.
If Pakistan and Afghanistan are the biggest global stories of the moment, the man who can shed the most light on them is surely Pervez Musharraf, who was Pakistan's president for almost a decade until just last year. He is my guest today for the hour.
But before we get started, I want to remind you about the history of this man. He came to power in a quick and bloodless coup in October 1999. He calls it a counter-coup; you'll learn why.
General Pervez Musharraf, then the chief of army, detained Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, suspended the constitution, disbanded parliament and went on state television to declare himself chief executive.
Then came 9/11, and Musharraf went from being a dubious dictator to a crucial strategic ally of the United States. He broke ties with the regime in Afghanistan, joined the Bush administration's war on terror, and announced initiatives to turn the tide of radical Islam in his country. He freed up the media and put in place a series of far- ranging economic reforms that ushered in strong growth.
Now, some Americans felt he didn't go far enough. But many Pakistanis felt he went too far. Public support, which was once strongly in his favor, started moving somewhat against him as the Pakistani people saw the war in Afghanistan as George W. Bush's war. Musharraf earned the name "Busharraf" in some quarters.
In 2007, he tried to cement his hold on power, including adding 29 amendments to the constitution, imposing emergency rule and suspending the nation's constitution. It didn't work.
In February 2008, Pakistan went to the polls, and the two parties that triumphed -- that of the assassinated leader, Benazir Bhutto, and of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif -- were allied in their opposition to Musharraf.
Months later, with discussion of impeachment in the air, he once again went on national television, this time to announce his resignation as president.
Tomorrow will mark nine months since that day. Pakistan has had a rocky ride since then. The current president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, has a 19 percent approval rating -- lower than Musharraf in his darkest days.
We'll talk about all this with President Pervez Musharraf, so stay with us.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
ZAKARIA: Joining me now is President Pervez Musharraf.
Welcome, sir.
PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, FORMER PRESIDENT OF PAKISTAN: Thank you.
ZAKARIA: Well, a lot of people watch what's happening in Pakistan and ask, why is this happening in Pakistan? Why does Pakistan seem to be filled with these radical elements, extremist movements, Taliban, elements of al Qaeda? Ten years and $10 billion later, it appears they are stronger.
But why has it not been successful? Let's just take what the end result is. You have the Swat Valley overrun by Taliban.
MUSHARRAF: Why is it not succeeding? Because of Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, more than 50 percent of Afghanistan is under Taliban control.
Why are U.S. forces and coalition forces not -- if you succeed in Afghanistan, all of this will be over.
ZAKARIA: Perhaps that's due...
MUSHARRAF: If you succeed in Pakistan...
ZAKARIA: ... to all these militant groups in Pakistan.
MUSHARRAF: Nothing will -- they get their -- they are there because they are supporting in Afghanistan, because they are getting all their military hardware through Afghanistan. Where are they getting their -- the money comes through the drugs in Afghanistan. Arms comes from Afghanistan.
So, Pakistan is a victim of what is happening in Afghanistan.
The world and the United States, and whatever discussion we have had, is through Pakistan, and everything is in Pakistan. A third, a half of Afghanistan is under control of Taliban, of Mullah Omar.
If you control here, if you are successful against Taliban and al Qaeda in Pakistan, let me assure you, the battle is not over, because Afghanistan is Afghanistan, and they will continue. If you succeed in Afghanistan, you will succeed in Pakistan.
We have suffered because of what is happening in Afghanistan. And we still continue to suffer because of that. Our society, I would say, our social fabric has been torn, and we are trying to repair it.
So, the world must understand, and the world must help Pakistan repair this torn fabric of ours, national fabric, instead of criticizing -- why is Pakistan like this, Pakistan is spreading Talibanization. At this moment, we are lucky -- the world is lucky -- that we have this army and the ISI.
Now, instead of weakening them, abusing them, criticizing them, we must strengthen them. Because, if they don't deliver, who else is going to deliver? It will all fail.
So, therefore, don't criticize the ISI and army. They are suffering with all this, and yet, going ahead.
ZAKARIA: So, let me ask you about the Pakistani Army and the ISI, because, as you know, there is a great deal of criticism. And the criticism basically takes the form that says, the Pakistani Army was, under your watch, given about $10 billion, that Pakistan in general was given $10 billion.
And the criticism goes, you took it, barely said "thank you." And what do we see 10 years later? More Talibanization, al Qaeda is stronger, Taliban is stronger. "Where did the money go," people ask.
MUSHARRAF: Five billion -- half of it -- is reimbursement for the services provided by Pakistan. It is not your money. It is our money.
So, let me say it again. Half of it, $5 billion, is our money. We provided services to you, so you are repaying us. So, $5 billion gone there.
Now we are left with $5 billion. Half of this $5 billion was meant for military, and the other half for social sector -- education, health and all that.
So, half of it, which was for military, was for -- I mean, it is pittance to maintain the helicopters, the air force, the ammunition that is being used to fight all these people. It is too less. And there was a time when, out of our 20 attack helicopters, only two were serviceable.
And I was -- I created a hue and cry. And then, only, could we get some support. So, that was for military support.
Now, people keep claiming that we are using all that on the eastern border against India. Now, that is a separate story altogether. Yes, indeed, our army has been maintained to have security against any threat.
ZAKARIA: But a lot of people feel that you are overly focused on the threat from India. And here you have people 60 miles from your border -- from your capital -- trying to take over Punjab, and you should be spending a much greater amount of time, money, energy, attention on that problem rather than the deterrence issue with India. MUSHARRAF: Well, we have to be balanced in our approach. On the eastern border, if Pakistan -- Pakistan's existence and security is under threat, when a big force like India is maintaining.
Let me now come into the military figures. They have about 33 infantry divisions. Twenty-four are on Pakistan borders. They have three armored divisions, all three against Pakistan borders. They have three mechanized divisions, all three against Pakistan borders.
Being a force commander, what would you do, when this huge force is there ready to attack you, and when they are saying that we are going to come and attack Pakistan, and when the public and the media is demanding that Pakistan should be punished and go and attack them?
ZAKARIA: This was after the Mumbai attacks, which were linked to Pakistan.
MUSHARRAF: After that also. After the attack on the parliament, also, we had this whole army, this whole force came on the borders. For 10 months they were there.
Obviously, I used -- I put my force there, and I threatened them, that if you try to attack us, and we are (ph) able (ph) to attack you. So, don't take Pakistan lightly.
So, Pakistan's security cannot be compromised. That is the first thing.
ZAKARIA: But your security is being compromised in the west...
MUSHARRAF: No...
ZAKARIA: ... by the Taliban.
MUSHARRAF: By they Taliban. Now, the question is, yes, indeed. One has to -- certainly, Pakistan's security is not being compromised by the Taliban. They are not of that strength.
This point that a lot of people say they are just 60 miles from the capital, the threat is not from these people. They dare not come onto the capital. They will be stopped by any force, any time.
But inside, extremism within, some elements who are right inside Islamabad, maybe in the form of -- in that Lal Masjid, in the Red Mosque, which we had to attack and eliminate in my time -- now, these are the people within our society. They are a small minority. But we must control them, because if we don't control this extremism inside our society, they develop linkages with the Taliban who are there, and al Qaeda.
So, al Qaeda, Taliban and these people develop linkages. We have to break that linkage through squeezing them.
It's all -- one has to have a proper strategy.
ZAKARIA: But it does sound to me like you're saying, look, the threat from the Taliban is not that great; we have to be more prepared against India. And that is what people fear, that the Pakistani military is not taking this as an existential threat.
MUSHARRAF: No. No, no. They are taking it.
I think -- please, I think, Fareed, we must not try to teach the Pakistan army where is the threat coming from. They analyze things. We have conferences. They take very, very deliberate decisions. They know where the threat is down and when it is up. And they take action accordingly.
When the Indian threat was there, when Indians, now, after the Mumbai attack, were talking of -- after the parliament attack, initially, they brought the whole army on our borders in 2002. Yes, indeed, we took the whole army against them.
So, yes, we are looking after Taliban, but we have to look after the eastern border, also. So, the thoughts are divided.
So, please don't tell us that you are entered (ph). There has to be a balance according to the threat analysis. And this threat analysis is done by the army very, very regularly.
You analyze your threat wherever it is coming from, whether it is Taliban or Indians, and take balanced action.
ZAKARIA: So, let me then tell you what Ahmed Rashid, the Pakistani journalist, says. He says that in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas the Pakistanis were reluctant to break cease-fires they had made with Baitullah Mehsud.
Some Pakistani officials still continue to give the Taliban a kind of legitimacy. The governor of the Northwestern Frontier Province claimed the Taliban movement was a national liberation movement.
In other words, there is -- this is a Pakistani journalist saying the Pakistani military still viewed many of these people as allies.
David Sanger, White House correspondent for the "New York Times," in his recent book quotes a CIA intercept of a conversation in which your successor, General Kayani, the head of the Pakistani Army, calls another key Taliban commander, Jalaluddin Haqqani, a strategic asset for the Pakistani military.
The fear is that the Pakistani military still views many of these Taliban militants as being useful in launching guerrilla operations, potentially in Kashmir, potentially against Afghanistan.
MUSHARRAF: No, this is absolutely baseless, and absolutely wrong.
I take serious exception to this, whoever has said that Kayani could have said that. I know Kayani since, I don't know how long. I can't imagine that he would have said this.
Intelligence is -- again, we are -- a lot of things happened. A lot of things happened.
ZAKARIA: You have contacts with the...
MUSHARRAF: Yes. Yes, indeed. After all, the KGB had contacts in CIA. CIA had contacts in KGB. That is how you have ingress into each other, and that is how you can manipulate things in your favor.
So, ISI also is an intelligence organization. They do exactly what CIA does or RAW does in India.
So, there was a way (ph) of dealing, but they were not supportive of them. Nobody is supportive of the Taliban. But, yes, there is complexity.
When drones come and attack, and the projection is that a lot of civilians are getting killed. So, therefore, within the army, like within the whole nation, there is a -- we are feeling against those attacks and in favor of those people who are being killed. So, there is a complexity involved.
There is an anti-United States feeling in the public, and also maybe in the army, yes, indeed, because of what has happened over '89 to 2001, in these 12 years when we were left alone, and the United States abandoned Pakistan's strategic relationship.
For 42 years, from '47 to '89, we were the strategic partner of the United States all over the world, in everything. We fought a war with them for 10 years.
What did we get in return? We were abandoned. So, what do the people of Pakistan think?
ZAKARIA: But I'm asking you about now. The question people have is -- let me put it more specifically, then.
The credence, the evidence for the fact that there is still reluctance is that the Pakistani military has not launched an attack of any serious kind against the Haqqani Taliban. It has not launched a serious attack on the Quetta Shura, the remnants of the Afghan Taliban that are in Quetta. It has not launched attacks on these people, perhaps because have (ph) used them.
This is the thinking.
MUSHARRAF: No, no. That's...
ZAKARIA: As useful. One day -- the theory goes, one day the Americans will leave. You, Pakistan, will be left with a strong India, and you want to have these militants...
MUSHARRAF: No, no...
ZAKARIA: ... to be able to operate guerrilla war.
MUSHARRAF: ... (UNINTELLIGIBLE) absolutely. Let me assure you that against India we maintain a deterrence level of force, conventional. And India will never attack us, as long as we have this force. They cannot. They know what we have, conventional and unconventional.
So, leave India aside. We maintain our...
ZAKARIA: So, why not go after these militants?
MUSHARRAF: We are going after them, and we are doing our best. Now, that is what needs to be understood here.
And when you said we haven't operated against them, so, we have about 700 al Qaeda people who were arrested or eliminated after 9/11. Have all been done by Pakistan, Pakistan Army. Who else had done it? Who else had arrested all the senior al Qaeda leadership?
Name one arrested by you, the United States. All by Pakistan, in Pakistan.
(END VIDEO)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MUSHARRAF: I warned her, because I got intelligence reports.
Now, coming to a threat, yes, indeed, there was a threat. I knew it, and I told her. I told her personally.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO)
ZAKARIA: And we are back with Pervez Musharraf, the former president of Pakistan.
One of the things you have heard publicly in Pakistan, here in the United States, is that in some way you did not provide enough security for Benazir Bhutto, or were in some way implicated in her death.
As you know -- and I know Wolf asked you this -- there was an e- mail she sent indirectly to Wolf Blitzer, saying, "I hold President Musharraf responsible."
MUSHARRAF: Well, these are -- I don't have words. I don't -- I think I would undermine myself if I were even to reply to any accusation that I was involved.
I have certain principles. I've been raised in a certain manner. I belong to a certain cultural background and a family background which doesn't believe in these things, of assassinations and eliminations.
ZAKARIA: But you believe, actually, you warned her.
MUSHARRAF: Yes. I warned her, because I got intelligence reports.
Now, coming to a threat, yes, indeed, there was a threat. I knew it. And not only me. But some certain friends of ours from the Gulf sent a special messenger to me, indicating that there were certainly some groups, terrorist groups, who supposedly have come to Karachi, and they would do an attack on her.
And I told her. I told her personally.
ZAKARIA: How did she respond?
MUSHARRAF: Well, she responded all right. She used to be all right with me on telephone. But she didn't say whether she was going to -- what she was going to do.
But I told her, I'm warning you that there is a threat in Rawalpindi, where she decided to go and address a gathering in Liaqat Bagh.
This is a place -- anyone who knows Pindi, which is most -- the thickest part of the city, with tall buildings all around, congested, heavily congested, and a main square. And this ground is open to all the buildings all around.
I told her, "You must not go." And the first time, in fact, I stopped her.
ZAKARIA: So, you specifically warned her not to go there.
MUSHARRAF: Yes. She was not allowed to go the first time. And she created such a hue and cry that she is being restricted, of political activities being restricted. It had a lot of negative fallout on me.
The next time again she wanted to go, she -- and then she went. And that is what happened. And she went. There was certainly a threat against her.
ZAKARIA: Let me read you something her husband, the president of Pakistan, said, Asif Ali Zardari. He's asked on "Meet the Press," he says, "You know, Mr. President, there's a widespread belief that your military and your intelligence services still have sympathies for the Taliban."
This is President Zardari. "I wouldn't agree with you. I think General Musharraf may have had a mindset that to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds, but certainly not on our watch. We don't have that thought process at all."
MUSHARRAF: How could I be supporting them? From what point of view? So that they come and kill me?
I mean, it's a ridiculous accusation. It's a very ridiculous accusation.
ZAKARIA: But the president of your country is making it.
MUSHARRAF: Well, I have said my bit, so it's his word against mine. You take whoever you want to trust.
ZAKARIA: The current president of Pakistan has 19 percent approval rating. For much of your presidency, your approval was in the 60, 70 percent range, though it did go down later.
Do you believe that Asif Ali Zardari, the current president of Pakistan, has the legitimacy, the political support to pursue this struggle against the Taliban?
MUSHARRAF: Well, in this part of the world, you believe very strongly in democracy. Democratically, he was elected by two-thirds of the parliament. So, he has democratic legitimacy.
ZAKARIA: But he's not a political figure in Pakistan. His wife was. He is not -- does he have -- the polls suggest that he does not have that much mass support.
You said to me once when I was talking to you in a Newsweek interview, you were referring to Benazir Bhutto in those days. You said that the leader of a country like Pakistan that is fighting terrorism needs three qualities. You must have the military with you. You must be seen as a non-religious -- you must not be seen as a non- religious person. And you must not be seen as an extension of the United States.
And you said that for that reason, Benazir Bhutto would find it very difficult to succeed as the leader of Pakistan.
Now, President Zardari seems to have all three strikes against him. Can he succeed?
MUSHARRAF: Well, that makes his task difficult in the eyes of the people of Pakistan.
ZAKARIA: Do you think that there is something he could do? You know, what advice would you have for him -- other than resign?
(LAUGHTER)
MUSHARRAF: I would like to comment on this. I think he is trying his best in his own way. Maybe he has some compulsion (ph) and inhibitions.
I wish the government well, because they are facing a very, very strong challenge of rectifying the economy, first of all, fighting terrorism. And then, over and above, there are political challenges. That makes the situation in Pakistan complex.
ZAKARIA: Why did the situation deteriorate to the point it is now, you know, this mess? MUSHARRAF: Yes, I would say now, there were no clear-cut instructions to the army what does the government want them to do. And they were pulled in different directions. A provincial government telling the army, "Oh, you hold on. You stay away. We are dealing politically."
So, they re-exerted. So, unless you are continuously pressurizing them and reducing their space for action, they will keep trying to expand.
ZAKARIA: This sounds like a failure of the new democratic government in Pakistan.
MUSHARRAF: Well, you can take any way. Well, it should have been -- the situation should have been handled with more strength, strongly.
Never give up strength. Because we had achieved something. You just have to maintain pressure. That is all. Just maintain pressure.
ZAKARIA: You talked about the sociopolitical compact that kept Afghanistan together. Is Hamid Karzai the man to reestablish this sociopolitical compact? Do you feel that he is -- is he today an ineffective leader?
MUSHARRAF: Well, let me not comment on him. Yes, indeed, when I was -- I used to be annoyed with him was because he was double-dealing with us. And I don't like double-dealing at all.
In a situation like this, I feel that the basic requirement is a unity of thought and action, by all -- by the Afghan government; by the coalition forces; and within coalition forces, the American forces and the others; in Pakistan, by the central government, by the provincial government and the army.
There has to be unity of thought and action. Unfortunately, that unity of thought and action is not there.
ZAKARIA: Meaning he would say one thing but do something else?
MUSHARRAF: Yes. He would be hiding things from us. There are things which were hurting us. He would -- he knew, and he wouldn't help out in addressing issues which were causing trouble to Pakistan.
ZAKARIA: You saw the recent press conference where he, President Obama, President Zardari were all there. They talked about a breakthrough. It seemed like they were getting on much better.
Do you think that the personal chemistry is now better, and so everything's going to be all right?
MUSHARRAF: Maybe. No comments. Maybe, yes. I hope that it is all right. I hope it is all right. And I hope they mean -- I hope he means whatever he says, because I found that he doesn't mean what he says. ZAKARIA: Do you believe that the Pakistani military is a professional military, in control of the nuclear weapons, dedicated to fighting the Taliban? Or is there a need for some transition? Is there a need for a strategic mind shift?
MUSHARRAF: Five hundred percent, there is no need of any mind shift. These aspersions are caused by those who want to weaken Pakistan.
Pakistan's strength is its army. And anyone who wants to weaken Pakistan attacks the Pakistan army and the ISI. And unfortunately, I...
ZAKARIA: And you stand by both, the ISI and the army?
MUSHARRAF: Yes, yes. Yes, indeed.
So, I personally think that there is some vicious campaign going on against Pakistan. Because if anyone wants to weaken Pakistan, attack these two institutions, not realizing that if you want to weaken the fight against terrorism, weakening them also weakens that. So, we are not realizing that.
Pakistan Army is an inheritance from the colonial period of the British Army. It's an extremely disciplined army. It carries out orders from the top. And army leadership carries out government orders.
ZAKARIA: So, there are no...
MUSHARRAF: Nobody...
ZAKARIA: ... rogue elements within...
MUSHARRAF: There cannot be.
(END VIDEO)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MUSHARRAF: I make up my own mind, and I have my own convictions and my own principles. So, therefore, those who know me, know that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO)
ZAKARIA: You've spent a lot of time with President Bush. In fact, in Pakistan people would sometimes accuse you of being "Busharraf."
What was your sense of him as a president, as a man?
MUSHARRAF: Well, first of all, whoever accuses me of being "Busharraf," or something, I'm nobody's man. I am, by nature -- by nature, I am not a follower. I don't follow blindly.
And I make up my own mind, and I have my own convictions and my own principles. So, therefore, those who know me, know that. Those who don't know me can call me anything. I don't care about that.
Having said that, President Bush -- I'm going to be frank -- he's been defeated. Yes, indeed, he's been much maligned. Yes, indeed, President Obama has come.
But you have asked me, so I must speak my frank views.
I liked him very much. And I think he was a very sincere person. I think he was a -- what I liked in him was that he was a straight- talker. And he was a very good friend. And I like that.
I like these qualities of a person, an individual, where he talks straight, up front, and prepared to listen up front also, because I used to do straight-talking also. And he showed sincerity in his friendship with me on a personal level. So, therefore, I have a good opinion about him.
ZAKARIA: But there were policies of his you disagreed with, for example, the war in Iraq.
MUSHARRAF: Yes. I think the war in Iraq, other than disagreeing with the war on Iraq, I had disagreed on the way it was launched, actually. And I think maybe it was the military planners who should have done better.
Because I, as a military man, I always think, when you are going to operate against an enemy, whether it's a country or anything, you want to see where the center of gravity of that force against which you are going to operate. And you must make a plan to disturb that center of gravity, or to break that center of gravity.
In Iraq, the center of gravity was not the whole of Iraq and not the people of Iraq. It was one man: Saddam Hussein.
So, let's make a plan. If I was the military commander, I would have made a plan to get to Saddam in the cheapest, simplest way, and not undertake an invasion of the whole of Iraq, because I knew from my contacts in the Middle East that he was an unpopular man in Iraq. The people of Iraq did not like him.
So, therefore, if the military planning was rockets and missiles coming from the air, from the navy, from the land, and double pincers and triple pincers coming as if it is the Second World War going on, with tanks and maneuvers, which are going to last for months -- where is the center of gravity? The center of gravity is that one man, sitting in Baghdad inside (ph).
Why couldn't Baghdad be taken, block the routes of entry and exits, and some efficient, effective, small force goes in to locate where he is, take public support, locate him and get him? And that is the end of an operation. I don't know. I thought we -- that led the world -- when the Muslim world saw missiles landing in Baghdad, and all fire and all hell let loose on the television, I think it led to -- and the whole of the Muslim world was in uproar.
ZAKARIA: Do you think we should leave Iraq on about the timetable that President Obama has said and laid out?
MUSHARRAF: No. No, now that also -- I know the public sentiment in the United States. But I would like to warn the people of the United States and President Obama. It's not that easy. The situation is not that simple.
We must not take Iraq to be Iraq alone. We have to see the whole region. We have to see the effect of leaving, first of all within Iraq. There is a Shia community. There is a Sunni community. There is a Kurd community.
What are the sensitivities of Turkey against the Kurds? What is the linkage of the Shias with Iran? What is the linkage of these with Hezbollah in Lebanon? What effect will it create in Lebanon?
And then, what effect will it create in the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia?
We need to analyze all this very deliberately and not take any action -- just for the sake of semantics, because people are demanding this -- that you destabilize the whole region.
Real leadership, it comes under test. That is my belief. When public opinion may not be correct, that is where leadership comes. You don't flow with public opinion then; you change public opinion. That is real leadership.
So, I will say, one needs to analyze. The United States understands, and President Obama understands compulsions (ph) here much more than me.
But there is a lot of deliberation required before we take action which has seeds of destabilizing this whole region.
ZAKARIA: What do you think of President Obama and what he has done in terms of the Muslim world, in terms of the Afghanistan strategic review? Do you feel like he's on the right track with both the political, cultural outreach and the military strategy?
MUSHARRAF: I don't see much change, frankly. I mean, I am trying to observe what is the change here. We always -- or always, I thought there should be more force in Afghanistan, because I think the force available there is diluted in space. That is a military term we use when the space is too large and the force is small.
So, and he has done that. He has done that physically. Maybe President Bush also thought that we should have more force there.
On the other side, I am glad. I think that he is looking at putting in more finances into the war in Afghanistan. That is the correct approach.
And the third area, that he believes in political dealings within Afghanistan, with the warring factions, with the other side. That is also a correct approach.
ZAKARIA: Talking to the Taliban is what you're saying.
MUSHARRAF: Yes, talking to the Taliban. And also, maybe overall, his concern on improving the United States' standing in the Muslim world, I think is also very positive.
ZAKARIA: But this...
MUSHARRAF: So, I believe...
ZAKARIA: ... is all sounding quite positive.
MUSHARRAF: Sorry?
ZAKARIA: It's all sounding positive. I mean, it seems like you're comfortable with where he's going.
MUSHARRAF: Yes. Yes, absolutely. I said that. Yes, I think he's on the right track.
ZAKARIA: And we will be back with President Musharraf to talk about more, including whether or not he foresees himself returning to the political fray in Pakistan.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAKARIA: There is a ban on your returning to political life in Pakistan, a two-year ban, which will expire in about a year.
MUSHARRAF: In November, six months.
ZAKARIA: Not that you're counting.
(LAUGHTER)
What will happen to Pervez Musharraf after that? Will you run for office in Pakistan?
MUSHARRAF: There is no running for office in six months. I mean -- well, frankly, I am on lecture circuits. I am enjoying this professor-like activity of giving lectures, which I could never imagine, as a military man, that I'll be doing that.
But one is concerned about Pakistan. Certainly, one does get concerned. Where are we headed? What are we doing?
I wish -- as I said, I wish the government well, that they must handle Pakistan and take it forward, bring peace and economic development. If that happens, one is -- I would be the happiest person continuing whatever I am doing.
ZAKARIA: But if Pakistan is still in trouble?
MUSHARRAF: If Pakistan is in trouble, and if any Pakistani, including myself, if he sees that we can do something for it, I don't think -- well, my life is for Pakistan.
ZAKARIA: And if the political party that supported you, the Muslim League Q, were to ask you to be its leader again, that's possible?
MUSHARRAF: They haven't asked me yet. Let them ask me first, then I'll reply.
ZAKARIA: Any regrets?
MUSHARRAF: Well, regrets, now, my regret is that on the first three years that I got, I should have gone to the supreme court and asked for another five years, because there were a lot of things that had to be done in Pakistan to bring this country on a path of continuous progress and balanced political and democratic activity, which I believed in.
I introduced the essence of democracy into Pakistan. What, after all, is democracy? It is the empowerment of the people. And I empowered the people, including (ph) the empowerment of women. Women were never empowered.
Today in our National Assembly, there are 72 women out of 243. Twenty-two percent are women. At the local government level, 30 percent are women.
So, who has done that? I did that. I brought about these changes and empowered the women.
We empowered the minorities. And then we liberated the media with freedom of speech and expression.
So, all this was done. That is democracy.
ZAKARIA: How do you wish to be remembered? How do you think people will remember your reign in Pakistan?
MUSHARRAF: Well, they should remember it as a period where Pakistan progressed. And they should remember it in accordance to a definition that I elect (ph) people (ph) for (ph) like this, yes.
I made a definition a long time, a long, long time back, of what will -- what is the responsibility of a leader or a government? I think the responsibility -- and this is my own definition, absolutely, not taken from any book.
And I think it's a simple definition: ensure the security, progress and development of the state, the welfare and wellbeing of its people.
On all three counts, the nation should understand, I provided all. I kept Pakistan secure from all threats. ZAKARIA: President Pervez Musharraf, thank you very much.
MUSHARRAF: Thank you, Fareed. It was my pleasure.
ZAKARIA: And we will be back.
(END VIDEO)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAKARIA: Now for our "What in the World" feature. Here's what caught my attention this week.
Whatever happened to the global pandemic? Three weeks ago, the World Health Organization declared a health emergency, wanting countries to prepare for the worst. Senior officials prophesied that millions could be felled by the disease.
But as of last week, the numbers were lower than the rates of infection and death for a typical seasonal flue.
Why did the predictions turn out to be so wrong? Some people blame the media. But surely, it would have been difficult not to have reported that major international health organizations were predicting catastrophe.
I think there's a broader problem that affects the way we perceive all aspects of the world. We're able to describe a problem in great detail, extrapolating out all its worst consequences. But we can rarely anticipate or describe the human response when it confronts this challenge.
So, with the swine flu, it had crucial characteristics in the virus that led researchers to worry that it could spread far and fast. They described, and the media reported, what would happen if it were unchecked.
But it did not go unchecked. In fact, swine flu was met by an extremely vigorous response at its epicenter, Mexico. The Mexican government reacted quickly and massively, quarantining the infected population, closing down public institutions and events. In the process, it suffered huge financial losses.
The noted expert on the subject, Laurie Garrett, says we should all stand up and scream, "Gracias, Mexico."
So, from all of us at GPS, "Muchas gracias, Mexico."
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAKARIA: Now, for the "Question of the Week."
Last week I told you I'd be interviewing President Pervez Musharraf, and I asked you to send me the question you would most like to him.
Not surprisingly, there were a lot of good ones, many which I actually had on my list. It turns out we think alike.
But I'm not too proud to borrow from my highly intelligent viewers, so I did. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZAKARIA: There is a great deal of criticism. And the criticism basically takes the form that says, the Pakistani army was, under your watch, given about $10 billion, that Pakistan in general was given $10 billion. And the criticism goes, you took it, barely said "thank you." And what do we see 10 years later? More Talibanization, al Qaeda is stronger, Taliban is stronger.
"Where did the money go," people ask.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAKARIA: Many of you sent a version of that question. So, thanks.
For this week's question, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu meets with President Obama tomorrow, Palestinian President Abbas the following week.
So, do you think President Obama will be able to negotiate a peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians in this term? And if so, why or why not?
Let me know what you think.
In addition to the question of the week, I want to ask you to try the Fareed Challenge, the weekly world affairs quiz on our Web sit, cnn.com/gps. It's fun. See how you do.
As always, I'd like to recommend a book. It's called "War of Necessity, War of Choice," and it's by Richard Haass, a frequent guest on this program. It's a fascinating insider's look at the United States' two wars with Iraq, in 1991 and in 2003. He is one of a handful of people who were involved at a high level in both wars. And he says the decision-making process could not have been more different.
Also, please check out our Web site, cnn.com/gps, for highlights from the program, our weekly podcast and our current affairs quiz. You can e-mail me, as always, at gps@cnn.com.
Thanks to all for being part of this program this week. I'll see you all next week.
Here's a video clip of Musharraf talking with Zajaria on CNN GPS:
Related Links:
Indian Hostility Toward Pakistan
Musharraf's Economic Legacy
Can Pakistani Military Defeat Taliban?
Taliban Insurgency Funded by Poppy and Marble
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