COUNTER-TERRORISM: ACT NOW

September 21, 2008 By

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR—PAPER NO.445

Global News Blog – Global Geopolitics Net Sites
Thursday, September 18, 2008

Copyright © B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group
www.southasiaanalysis.org

B.RAMAN

The address of the Prime Minister, Dr.Manmohan Singh, to the Governors’ conference at New Delhi on September 17,2008, contains a number of important pronouncements relating to the fight against terrorism. These pronouncements taken together amount to an attempt by the Government, which is almost at the end of its term before the general elections are due, to come out of the denial mode into which it had kept itself confined since it came to office in 2004.

2.While refuting allegations from the critics that the Government was soft on terrorism, the Prime Minister admitted that there had been intelligence failures and that in addition to the continuing threats from jihadi terrorists infiltrated from Pakistan, the nation is now finding itself confronted with a new dimension of the threat posed by more Indian nationals gravitating to the ranks of the jihadis.

3. A point, which was not mentioned by the Prime Minister, but which needs to be underlined is that the phenomenon of home-grown jihadis is not new to India. We had faced a serious threat of home-grown jihadis from the Al Umma of Tamil Nadu after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992. Al Umma spread death and destruction across Tamil Nadu between 1993 and 1999 including the orchestrated serial blasts in Coimbatore in February,1998. Al Umma was almost a hundred per cent home-grown movement with no links to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) or to the global jihad waged by Al Qaeda and its Pakistani associates. The threat from Al Umma was largely neutralized by the effective action taken by the Tamil Nadu Police after the Coimbatore blasts.

4. Between the end of the Kargil conflict with Pakistan towards the end of 1999 and November,2007, we saw a new wave of jihadi terrorist strikes outside Jammu & Kashmir involving either the ISI-sponsored Pakistani organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) or a mix of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian elements. While the Pakistani and Bangladeshi elements in this mix largely belonged to the LET and the HUJI, the Indian elements came largely from the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) plus a few with no previous affiliation to any organization. These groups thought and acted tactically as well as strategically.

5.Tactically, they viewed their operations as meant to retaliate against the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the anti-Muslim incidents in Gujarat in 2002 after the massacre of some Hindu pilgrims traveling by a train by some Muslim fanatics at Godhra. Strategically, they viewed them as part of the global jihad being waged by the International Islamic Front (IIF) under the leadership of Al Qaeda for achieving an Islamic Caliphate and putting an end to the presence and influence of the US in the Islamic world.

6. What we have been seeing across India since November last year is a revival of the Al Umma phenomenon of reprisal terrorism with the tactical objective of wreaking vengeance against the society as a whole and the Governments in New Delhi and different States for the alleged wrongs done to the Indian Muslims. These elements have been operating under the name of the Indian Mujahideen (IM) and deny vehemently in their propaganda any foreign links either with the ISI or with the Pakistani organizations. They have till now not given any indication of any strategic objective. They just want to kill and desire to demonstrate their ability to kill wherever and whenever they want.

7. All the suspected perpetrators arrested till now in Ahmedabad, Jaipur and other places in connection with the serial blasts for which the IM has claimed responsibility are Indian Muslims. This need not mean that there is no hidden foreign involvement either of Pakistani organizations or of Al Qaeda. The fact that till now they have not been talking and acting strategically does not mean that they do not consider themselves as part of the global jihad being waged under the leadership of Al Qaeda.

8. One significant difference needs to be noted in the modus operandi of the Pakistan-sponsored jihadi organizations and the IM. Under instructions from the ISI, Pakistani organizations generally do not claim responsibility for attacks on civilians. They claim responsibility only for the attacks on the security forces. Like Al Qaeda, the IM admits its responsibility for targeted attacks on civilians and proclaims such attacks as part of its policy. Al Qaeda admitted its responsibility for the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US and lionized the terrorists, who attacked the London public transportation system in July,2005. There have been other instances of Al Qaeda openly proclaiming its responsibility for attacks on civilians.

9. The new dimension of the threat as stated by the Prime Minister has made him concede the need to enhance the powers of the police through special laws where necessary and to set up a special central agency to investigate and prosecute terrorism-related cases.

10. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister’s pronouncements, which indicate a change in the Government’s thinking and strategy, have come hardly a few months before the elections. His critics would, therefore, suspect that his pronouncements were more an electoral ploy than the result of a genuine change of conviction as to how to fight terrorism.

11.Moreover, even if he is able to counter successfully suspicions of an electoral ploy, the concretization of his pronouncements through the drafting and enactment of appropriate laws and introducing the necessary changes in the counter-terrorism architecture will take at least a year. This is not something that can be done overnight. The Lok Sabha is about to enter the lame duck mode and the opposition will try its best not to give the Government any credit for bringing about the necessary changes.

12.In this context, what is important is an urgent short-term plan to identify the brains behind the self-styled IM and neutralize them before they spread further death and destruction. As I have been pointing out repeatedly, this is a pan-Indian threat not confined to a single State and hence calls for a pan-Indian response. It is important to make the Police in all the States where the blasts have already taken place carry out their investigations in an integrated manner through an appropriate short-term mechanism, which would not require any major change in the existing laws.

13. We have had three examples of successful investigations and prosecution. The first was the investigation into the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE in 1991. In view of its ramifications extending to more than one State and its external linkages, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), then headed by Vijaykaran, an officer of the Intelligence Bureau, was asked to take over the investigation through a special task force headed by D.R.Kartikeyan.

14. The second was the investigation into the Mumbai serial blasts of March,1993. Here the investigation was done by the Mumbai Police with the CBI handling the external ramifications. Narasimha Rao, the then Prime Minister, set up a co-ordination committee headed by S.B.Chavan, the then Home Minister, to co-ordinate the investigation on a day-to-day basis. Rajesh Pilot, the then Minister of State for Internal Security, played a live wire role in this co-ordination. Narasimha Rao closely monitored the work of this committee, by periodically chairing the meetings himself.

15. The third was the investigation into the terrorist strikes in Tamil Nadu. This was done in a very creditable manner by the Tamil Nadu Police through its own resources.

16. The serial blasts, which the country has been facing since November 2007, are more complicated. While the Police officers of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Delhi have been doing excellent work through their resources, the final results in terms of identification, neutralization and prosecution may not be quite satisfactory in the absence of a continuous and effective central role. How to achieve this has to be decided by the Prime Minister quickly in consultation with the Chief Ministers of the targeted States.

17. Political and electoral considerations should not be allowed to come in the way of time-bound action to put a stop to these serial blasts.

18. If these blasts continue in this manner with the police and the intelligence agencies being perceived not only by our public, but also by foreign Governments and investors as helpless, it could come in the way of our efforts to invite more foreign investment. The foreign investors have till now shown signs of continuing confidence in the capability of our Police and security agencies to prevail over the terrorists sooner than later. But, if such incidents continue at regular intervals, this confidence could be shaken.

19. The time for action is now, not tomorrow, which may be too late.(18-9-08)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )

Filed Under: Asia, Featured, Terrorism

US GLOVES ARE OFF AGAINST PAKISTAN

September 21, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics Net Sites – Global News Blog
Sunday, September 21, 2008

By Malladi Rama Rao

So the US gloves are off against Pakistan. The battle zones in eastern Afghanistan and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan are merged into one. From September 3, American ground assault troops with helicopter gun ships providing aerial cover are targeting Taliban and al Qaeda militants who made America lose any hope of winning the unending war in Afghanistan. US air strikes on militant bases deep inside Pak territory are also not new. The first reported strike took place at Damadola village in Bajaur agency early 2006 in which 18 civilians were killed. But what distinguishes the September 3 attack was that it was publicly acknowledged by the Americans with the White House ‘leak’ to the New York Times that President Bush had authorised in July itself attacks on terrorist havens inside Pakistan.

According to a version of the ‘attack’, two Chinook helicopters dropped several American soldiers at 1 pm on the Afghan side of the border near the Saway Waray area of Angoor Adda. They then moved swiftly towards Pakistan border villages with a helicopter gun ship flying over them, completed their ‘mission’ and returned to their bases across the Durand Line.

Well, this is hot pursuit of militants to smoke them out of their holes, as promised by President Bush nearly seven years ago. But the timing of his action is intriguing. Is he on a desperate push for an ‘al-Qaeda trophy? Or is he trying to pump prime the fortunes of the Republicans in the Presidential elections after a string of diplomatic set backs from Georgia to Iraq and in Bolivia and Venezuela.

Whatever be the ‘truth’ on which the Americans are always economical, the US President’s hands were forced by his military commanders who for long were talking about the Pakistan’s double-crossing in the fight against terrorists. There was a clear sign of desperation when the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, told the House Armed Services Committee: ‘Frankly, we are running out of time…..I am not convinced we are winning in Afghanistan….(but) I am convinced we can.’ Both Admiral Mullen and Defence Secretary Robert Gates told Congress this week that for victory in Afghanistan the US needed to take the fight to the enemy inside Pakistan. And on September 9, in a speech at the National Defence University, President Bush all but called Pakistan a terrorist state, saying that terrorists were ‘increasingly using Pakistan as a base from which to destabilise Afghanistan’s young democracy’.

There was a time before 11 September 2001 when the US would resolutely reject Indian complaints that Pakistan had become a haven for terrorists. The US refused to believe for long that Pakistan was a major part of the problem of terrorism and saw the country as a solution and counted it as its front-line ally. Now, it is mounting pressure on Pakistan to reform its ‘powerful’ Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). “It (ISI reform) has to be done,” Assistant Secretary of State for south and central Asian affairs Richard Boucher told the Reuters in Washington on September 16. Why ISI has suddenly become the bad guy for the Americans is unclear as yet. It could be a result of the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in July. The ISI helped Jalaluddin Haqqani’s fighters to carry out the attack. American officials told Dexter Filkins, a correspondent for The Times that the evidence of the ISI’s involvement was overwhelming. “It was sort of this ‘aha’ moment,” one of them said.

Jalaluddin is a long-time associate of bin Laden. His son, Serajuddin Haqqani, is a senior Taliban commander battling the Americans in eastern Afghanistan. The Haqqanis are believed to be overseeing operations from a hiding place in North Waziristan. The Pakistan establishment has never tried to hide its equation with the Haqqanis. Two years ago, for instance, a senior ISI official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told a New York Times reporter that he regarded Serajuddin Haqqani as one of the ISI’s intelligence assets. “We are not apologetic about this,” the ISI official said. For a presumed ally of the United States, that was a stunning admission. The September 3 strike reportedly killed Jalaluddin’s wife and his daughter.

The question, therefore, is why did the Bush administration not undertake the hot pursuit of Pak based militants thus far. And instead, as a Stratfor commentary points out, used New Delhi as a lever to extract concessions from Islamabad like it did during the 2001-02 military stand off between the two South Asian rivals. The answer lies in the personal rapport Gen Pervez Musharraf had with President Bush, and his success in hoodwinking the Pentagon, CIA and the State Department. He did not even once visit the Wazirs and Mashuds in Waziristan during his nine- year rule. The tribal chiefs felt emboldened as they realised that the leadership in Islamabad lacked the will to deal with them.

Yes, under American pressure, Gen Musharraf ‘declared’ war against the militants and deployed ‘over 100,000 troops’ to ‘flush’ them out. He ordered the arrest of some 2,000 militants, many of whom were trained in ISI sponsored camps in POK and Northern Areas. Deception was the game Musharraf practiced in this drive as well. Quietly he allowed the release of most arrested militants. Pak Scouts and Frontier Constabulary were made the cannon fodder in the offensive against militants and the army was mostly spared. Also foreign militants were hit the most while the Afghan militants and the Pakistani militants who support the Afghans were ‘kid -gloved’, according to Khalid Aziz, who heads the Peshawar based Regional Institute of Policy Research.

President Bush had an opportunity to arm twist Gen Musharraf, when the Pak leader had entered into a series of agreements with tribal elders in Shakai, Sarogha and Miramshah. He did not. It is one of those enigmatic Bush mysteries, to put it mildly. Because these agreements for the first time had showed that all was not well in the US-Pak alliance. No doubt the Americans used ‘Predator’ diplomacy to literally nullify these peace accords but that was neither here nor there.

There is an argument that by launching direct operations against the Pak based militants the United States is undermining nascent democracy in Pakistan. This talking point is valid for the seminar circuit. It ignores the reality that Washington (like Beijing) is always comfortable with tyrants, and its concern to democracy is limited to Oval Office interactions, White House Press Briefing Room and occasionally to the Rose Garden tours. Any how, Pakistan’s new helmsman, Asif Ali Zardari is a US-backed President much like his predecessor, Musharraf, who was a US-backed dictator. This is notwithstanding the British claim that London too played a major role in ushering in the Zardari presidency by turning the screws on UK-based Pak leaders like MQM chief to make them fall in-line. The Americans opted for Zardari because as a known Mr 10 per cent he appeared more amenable than Nawaz Sharif, who is completely in the Saudi camp.

Fact of the matter is that Zardari is only a stop-gap President. He refuses to acknowledge the home truth though. That was why he dared to declare with great gusto that he wound pursue of a policy of negotiations rather than confrontation to win over the tribal militant leadership. And immediately burnt his bridges with the United States. In contrast, his wily army chief, Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani keeps himself on board the US plans while letting the myth that he had ordered the troops to shoot US raiders gains wide currency.

Washington and the American media are playing no mean role in spreading the ‘good word’ that Pakistan army is ‘determined’ to ‘defend the sovereignty of the nation’. Interestingly, however, the Kayani myth was shattered by a report tucked in the inside pages of ‘The Dawn’ on Sept 17. The headline itself was a give away. It read: “ISPR chief (army spokesman) downplays report about orders given to forces.”

The report by Iftikhar A Khan said, “Talking to Dawn, Maj-Gen Athar Abbas (army spokesman) downplayed the AP report (on orders to troops to fire at the Americans…) and said there was nothing new about it. He said he had been quoted out of context by AP. He said he had been asked how would Pakistan retaliate. The answer was that it would be done by engaging those who violated the sovereignty of the country. He did not say when the orders to fire on US troops were issued. He also did not say whether the Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani personally took the decision. The ISPR spokesman also played down suggestions that the instructions had been put into operation”.

The point is Gen Kayani has hitched himself on to anti-American band wagon with effortless ease. It helps him (and this suits the Americans) to emerge from the shadows as the darling of the masses and soldiers alike. Look at his tour diary if you are not convinced still. Last week, when anti-American sentiment was at its peak, tribal elders and religious scholars of FATA and NWFP were backing the ‘bold stance of the Army chief’, and the political class was hailing ‘no –nonsense statements of the army chief’ and was poking fun at ‘the wimpish political leadership’, (The News, Sept 17), he was neither in Wana nor Miranshah, not even Bajaur, but at the forward posts on the Line of Actual Contact and Line of Control in Northern Areas. He patted his troops on Siachen (Pak controlled). The General spoke of ‘national consensuses’ on Kashmir and declared ‘Odds can’t deter Pak army from defending the nation’. Next week he is going to China on a five-day visit, his first since he assumed the command of the Pak army.

The Kayani postures serve a purpose. More since he is in regular contact with Admiral Michael Mullen who keeps hoping into Islamabad on unscheduled visits often ( the latest visit was last week). Whatever may be his dilemma, the Kayani rhetoric helps to divert public attention towards the core issue of Kashmir and the traditional enemy ‘Hindustan’.

Undoubtedly this is bad news for Manmohan Singh government as it has already burnt its fingers badly with its Amarnath follies and the ineptitude and indifference of Home Minister Shivraj Patil. But it gives the badly needed breathing space for Kayani and his colleagues in dealing with the US. Any how Islamabad cannot risk (even dream of) a major confrontation with Washington because of its pathetic dependence on the monthly American and IMF doles.

On its part, the Bush administration is not going to get sucked into Pakistan tribal belt. It has learnt its lessons well from Vietnam to Iraq and the bloody nose the Soviet Union had suffered in Afghanistan. It has a limited goal and limited time frame to operate. Firstly, it wants to replicate the narrow strategy pioneered in Iraq, namely bump off the militant leaders one–by-one and help create infrastructure to facilitate future operations. Secondly, in fact, most importantly, diminish, if not end completely, the powerful role of the ISI, reform the army and rework the skewed policy with a set of new managers like Kayani. A high risk policy it is but President Bush is known for such gambles.

About the Author

Malladi Rama Rao is an analyst and writer on the Indian political scene and geo-political and security issues of South Asia. He directs a Weekly Feature Service in English, Syndicate Features, in colloboration with his wife Vaniram. He is also the India Editor of Asian Tribune.

SYNDICATE FEATURES

B-308, Puneet Apts. B-10, Vasundhara Enclave, Delhi; Ph -22617660 E-mail: syndicatefeatures@rediffmail.com

Filed Under: Featured, Geopolitics, Politics, Terrorism

US STRIKES IN FATA: CHANGE IN CONTINUITY

September 19, 2008 By

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR—PAPER NO.447

Global Politics Online – Global Geopolitics Net Sites
Friday, September 19, 2008

Copyright © B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group
www.southasiaanalysis.org

B.RAMAN

The rules of engagement relating to Pakistan’s tribal belt followed by the US forces in Afghanistan before July,2008, were that while Pakistan had agreed to deniable air strikes by unmanned Predator aircraft of the US on suspected terrorist hide-outs in Pakistani territory adjoining the Pakistan-Afghan border in the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), it had not agreed to any unilateral ground strikes by the US forces based in Afghanistan either in exercise of the right of hot pursuit or to pre-empt planned attacks by Al Qaeda and the Taliban on the NATO forces in Afghanistan from sanctuaries in Pakistani territory.

2. According to leaks to sections of the US media by unidentified US officials, in the middle of July President George Bush approved some changes in the rules of engagement relating to ground strikes under which he authorised the US special forces to undertake unilateral ground strikes in Pakistani territory under certain circumstances. In this connection, reference is invited to my previous article titled PAK-US SNAFU of 13-9-08 at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2843.html .
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Asia, Featured, Geopolitics, Terrorism, United States

INDIAN MUJAHIDEEN: MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

September 17, 2008 By

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR– PAPER NO.444

Global News Blog – Global Geopolitics Net Sites
Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Copyright © B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group
www.southasiaanalysis.org

B.RAMAN

( To be read in continuation of my earlier article of 26-8-08 titled “Indian Mujahideen Planning Suicide Attacks” at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2821.html )

The group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen (IM) has so far sent five E-mail messages to sections of the media since it made its appearance in November last year. The first message was sent a few minutes before the serial blasts in three towns of Uttar Pradesh in November last year. The second was sent after the blasts in Jaipur in May,2008. The third was sent before the blasts in Ahmedabad on July 26,2008. The fourth was sent after the press conference held by the Gujarat Police in August,2008, in which they claimed to have solved the case relating to the Ahmedabad and Jaipur blasts, identified the perpetrators and arrested many of them. According to the Gujarat police version, it was the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which is now operating as the IM. The firfth message was sent before the blasts in New Delhi on September 13,2008.

2.The first, second, third and fifth messages claimed responsibility for the blasts and the fourth debunked the claims of the Gujarat Police of having solved the case and tried to convey the impression that the arrested persons had nothing to do with the blasts. Surprisingly, the IM has not sent any E-mail messages claiming responsibility for the serial blasts in Bangalore on July 25,2008.

3.Intriguingly, the IM describes its latest E-mail warning of the New Delhi blasts as “our third consecutive E-mail “. It says: “The INDIAN MUJAHIDEEN accepts the sole responsibilityof Delhi serial blasts, and we claim this, through our third consecutive email, which is, unfortunately, still a mystery for you. It is very sad to see the bad condition of your cyber forensics who have still failed to find out our technique of sending the “Message of Death”.” Why does the IM talk of only three E-mail messages, when the media had received five E-mails, all purporting to be from the IM?

4. A careful study of all the E-mail messages purported to have been sent in the name of the IM indicates the following:

* While the first two E-mail messages were virulent in their content, they were not obnoxiously abusive in their language. The last three messages were not only virulent in their content, but also obnoxious in their language. I had pointed out in my earlier paper cited above that in the message about the Ahmedabad blasts, they had used the word bastard which normally Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda organisations are never known to use. The latest message on the New Delhi blasts are even more abusive than the previous two messages regarding the blasts in Ahmedabad.P.C.Pandey, the DG of Police of Gujarat, has been abused as a rascal, a bastard, a corrupt old hag, a base-born criminal and a filthy loyal dog of Narendra Modi. These are typical of the Mafia underworld of Mumbai and Gujarat.
* The Gujarat Police and the Rajasthan Police and their Police chiefs have been severely condemned in the latest and a specific threat of terrorist attack has also been held out against A.K.Jain of the Rajasthan Police. But, significanly, there is no criticism of the Karnataka Police and its chief. There is not even a reference to the investigation by the Bangalore Police, whereas the investigations by the Ahmedabad and Jaipur police have been debunked and their claims of having solved the cases have been questioned. Similarly, there is no reference to the UP Police investigation of the blasts of November last.
* The language used in the third and fourth messages about the Ahmedabad blasts and the fifth message about the New Delhi blasts, which are very abusive, differ from the language used in the first message about the UP blasts and the second about the Jaipur blasts.

5. Why such discrepancies? It is important to find answers to them before we come to definitive conclusions about the IM. Just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of the terrorist is in the catching.Unless and until we are able to identify and neutralise or arrest the right persons, who are the brains behind the IM, we will have more surprises. We have arrested many perpetrators of individual blasts, but I am not sure we have arrested the brains. By thinking and prematurely projecting that we have identified and arrested the brains, we will make ourselves liable for more surprises, which could damage the credibility of the police in the eyes of the public.

6. In the latest message, the State Governments of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have been criticised for their alleged harassment of the Muslims, but the main brunt of the criticism has been on Maharashtra and the Mumbai Police. Having attacked the national capital in New Delhi, they could next target the economic capital in Mumbai.

7. From these messages, it is apparent that the IM does not as yet have a strategic objective such as the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate or the “liberation” of the Muslims of India. Its objective till now is purely tactical to wreak vengeance on the Hindutva organisations and the various State Governments accused of harassing the Muslims. New Delhi seems to have been targeted not only to exhibit their capability for action in the capital, but also to wreak vengeance on the Government of India for its failure to prevent the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December,1992.The message says: “Babri Masjid was and will remain to be our glorious self esteem and Inshallah, we will prove it to you a hornet’s nest in which you have immersed your bare hand, unaware of the pain to come. If you are prepared to suffer the results of this issue,then by the will of Allah, verily! We will make you face it, and if you feel you are wise enough, then here we announce our ultimatum:Vacate the land of Babri as soon as you can.” (15-9-08)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )

Filed Under: Asia, Featured, Terrorism

Bangladesh: Cog in the terror wheel

September 16, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – Global Analyst Online
Tuesday, September 16, 2008

© Copyright 2008 Susenjit Guha. All rights reserved.

With the New Delhi blasts killing close to 30 innocent people and wounding around 90 more last Saturday, India is getting to be a regular venue for terrorists, who pick selective targets in the capital city and other metropolitan cities in India with impunity.

According to the National Counterterrorism Center in Washington, D.C., the death toll of 3,674 people in India between January 2004 and March 2007 ranks it second only to Iraq in terms of terrorism casualties.

More than ever before, this has become cause for alarm, because unlike earlier strikes on Indian soil where the roots could be traced back directly to operatives in Pakistan, blasts in recent times are the handiwork of homegrown terrorists. In May this year, blasts in the Indian city of Jaipur took 80 lives, and, in July, terrorists killed 55 people in a strike in Ahmedabad.

Indian politicians are not helping the situation. Some raise the specter of fanaticism in the name of Hinduism to meet the terrorist threat head-on, keeping one eye on the exclusive Hindu vote, while others practice appeasement politics, treating fundamentalists the same as secular Indian Muslims, wary of losing the entire Muslim vote.

The Indian Mujahideen, strongly suspected of masterminding earlier strikes and claiming responsibility for the series of blasts in New Delhi in an email to the media, could not have made a move on their own if they had not been influenced by groups across the border in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Such a precarious situation raises several questions: Are adequate efforts being made by countries to address the roots of terrorism? Is the world, which is fixated on Pakistan’s volatile, rugged northwest region where American forces battle suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, increasingly overlooking other nations that either support terrorism or turn a blind eye to their operations?

It is alleged that Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, has used U.S. aid over the years to wage covert operations in India. Allegations were rife about Pakistan’s role in the recent bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. The ISI is accused of sending terrorists into Indian Kashmir, who then train locals and indoctrinate them with their ideologies and philosophies, all in a bid to create mayhem in India.

There is no denying the fact that the ISI’s agenda has led to the creation of terrorist sleeper cells within India. In Bangladesh, where anti-Indian sentiments run high in certain circles, the ISI has sought to outsource some of its terrorism training to be used against India. Poverty, believed to be the cause for disillusioned youth to careen towards terrorism – though not always applicable in India – is the most potent reason for recruitment in Bangladesh’s villages.

The Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, a terrorist outfit in Bangladesh set up by Bin Laden’s cohorts in the 1990s, was suspected to be behind blasts in the Indian state of Hyderabad last year. It is also believed that militancy in the name of Islam flourished not only under Khaleda Zia’s government in Bangladesh but also under past military rulers who looked upon radicals for support in the absence of popular public backing.

Bangladesh’s news daily Amader Shomoy, or “Our Times,” wrote that Al Qaeda senior leader Ayman Jawahiri’s visit to Dhaka, as the guest of a local handicraft dealer, was mediated by a Pakistani diplomat, quoting sources in the Dhaka metropolitan police.
The Weekly Blitz also featured a story on how Al Qaeda started operating in Bangladesh with the help of local Islamist leaders like Mufti Shahid, a close aide of Bin Laden.

Selig S. Harrison’s article in the Los Angeles Times, “Get a grip on Dhaka,” published July 2, quotes the U.S. State Department’s report of HUJI’s contact with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. In his article, Harrison mentions how HUJI’s founder, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, a signatory to Bin Laden’s first holy war against the United States, “quietly built up terrorist bases in Bangladesh’s jungles, under the protective aegis of the military regime allied to militants.”

Bangladesh’s border along India’s eastern state of West Bengal is porous, which makes it easy for terrorists to infiltrate and intermingle with the similar ethno-linguistic population on the other side of the border, and later fan out to other parts of India.

Unless Bangladesh is brought into the focus of international attention in the aftermath of the terrorist strikes on the Indian subcontinent, a more realistic approach toward combating the menace of terrorism may elude policymakers not only in India, but in the United States as well.

About the Author:

Susenjit Guha is a writer and journalist based in Kolkata, India. He contributes a weekly commentary and analysis for UPI Asia and has written on Indian and global political issues for such online publications as Online Opinion (Australia) and Foreign Policy in Focus (USA) and M.J Akbar (India).

Filed Under: Asia, Featured, Terrorism

SELF-STYLED INDIAN MUJAHIDEEN STRIKES IN NEW DELHI

September 13, 2008 By

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR— PAPER NO.444

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – Global Analyst Online – IPS
Saturday, September 13, 2008

Copyright © B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group
www.southasiaanalysis.org

B.RAMAN

The so-called Indian Mujahideen (IM) has once again, through an E-mail sent to some media offices, claimed the responsibility for a series of five explosions in three crowded market places of New Delhi between 6-45 PM and 7 PM on September 13,2008. At least nine persons are reported to have been killed and many injured. The message is reported to have been sent five minutes before the explosions took place. It speaks of nine Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) planted in different places. Five of these have exploded. Three are reported to have been detected by the police before the explosion could take place. One remains unaccounted for.

2.One has to await details of evidence regarding the IEDs before one could comment on their similarity,if any, with the earlier blasts in three cities of Uttar Pradesh last November, in Jaipur in May and in Bangalore and Ahmedabad in July, but the means of communication used to claim responsibility for the blasts and to provide authenticity of the claim are the same.The use of E-mails signed by similar kuniyats (assumed names such as al-Hindi or al-Arabi) and similar-sounding E-mail addresses indicate the same organisation has been responsible.

3. It is already quite clear that a wide area pan-Indian network of terrorists has come up in our midst and has managed to train a number of Indian Muslims not only in assembling IEDs, but also in clandestine methods of operation and communication. From what one heard of the contents of the message from the IM about the New Delhi blasts, there is an element of bravado in it. It taunts the security experts for not being able to establish who are behind these messages. It shows a certain confidence that the police are not yet on the trail of those sending these messages.

4. The success of the UP Police in identifying some of those involved in the blasts of last November did not prevent the blasts that followed in other cities. Similarly, the success of the Ahmedabad and Jaipur Police in arresting many of those responsible for the blasts in their cities has not come in the way of the successful strike in New Delhi.

5. Normally, timely preventive intelligence comes either from intercepts of communications and/or penetration of the terrorist organisations. The IM has apparently been using the Internet for its internal communications and not telephones. If so, this highlights our inadequacies in intercepting Internet communications. Since we still do not know the identity and organisational structure of the IM, penetrating it would have been understandably difficult. We were presuming before the UP blasts of last November that all terrorist strikes must be the work of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) or the Pakistan/Bangladesh based Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI). Since November last, we have been focussing on the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). It is possible that elements from all these organisations are involved. It is equally possible that there are other Indian Muslim elements who had not come to the notice of the police earlier/. It is important to keep an open mind and establish the composition and structure of the IM. Only then penetration would be possible.

6.Preventive intelligence also comes fom the thorough interrogation of those arrested in connection with the previous blasts. All the arrests made so far, whether in UP or Jaipur or Ahmedabad , were mainly of those involved in those blasts. They apparently did not enable us to identify and arrest those trained with a capability for assembling IEDS, but who had not yet participated in any terrorist strike.

7. It should be apparent by now firstly, that we have only identified the tip of the jihadi iceberg in our midst. The iceberg itself remains unexposed. Secondly, we have not yet been able to identify the command and control of the IM. Thirdly, like Al Qaeda, the IM is divided into a number of autonomous cells each capable of operating independently without being affected by the identification and neutralisation of the cells involved in previous blasts.

8. All these years, our focus was on the training camps for jihadi terrorists in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Interrogation of those arrested since the beginning of this year has brought out that many training camps had been held in different parts of India by the SIMI. We were apparently oblivious of the details of these camps and the identities of those trained. It is important to have a common investigation cell for the whole of India to identify the various elements involved in this wide area network and neutralise them. Piecemeal investigation in different States ruled by different political parties each with its own partisan perception and agenda will result in our continuing to bleed at the hands of this network (13-9-08)

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )

Filed Under: Asia, Featured, Terrorism

ISI-SPONSORED ATTACK ON INDIAN EMBASSY IN KABUL BOOMERANGS

September 12, 2008 By

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO.440

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – Global Analyst Online – IPS
Friday, September 12, 2008

Copyright © B. Raman – South Asia Analysis Group
www.southasiaanalysis.org

B.RAMAN

(To be read in continuation of my earlier paper of September 4,2008, titled “US Special Forces Launch Hit & Withdraw Raid in S. Waziristan” at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2832.html )

The car bomb explosion outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul on July 7,2008, has boomeranged on Pakistan. According to reliable Pakistani police sources, the US has been able to collect independent evidence from its own sources that the plan for the explosion was drawn up by serving officers of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and executed through a suicide bomber selected by Serajuddin Haqqani, son of Jalalludin Haqqani, the senior Taliban Commander.

2. These sources say that while the US has conclusive evidence on the role of some serving officers of the ISI in organising the explosion, it still does not have adequate evidence to show whether Lt.Gen.Nadeem Taj, the Director-General of the ISI, who is related to Gen.(retd) Pervez Musharraf, was in the picture and whether clearance had been obtained at the political level.

3. The US generally does not act upon intelligence against Pakistan provided by India due to the possibility that it may be motivated. It acts only when it is able to collect independent evidence from its own sources. The US has not yet been able to identify all the ISI officers, who had played a role in organising this attack just as it was able to identify in 1992-93 all the ISI officers, including Lt.Gen.Javed Nasir, the then DG of the ISI, who had instigated the Afghan Mujahideen not to sell back the unused Stinger missiles to the US.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured, Terrorism

The Pakistan Puzzle

September 11, 2008 By

Republished with permission on Global Geopolitics Net and Global News Blog
Thursday, September 11, 2008

© Copyright 2008 Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. All rights reserved.

by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Read the article as first publihed on inFocus – Fall 2008

Upon taking office in January 2009, the next American president will face a bleak situation in Pakistan. After losing their Afghanistan sanctuary, most of al-Qaeda’s senior leaders relocated to Pakistan’s restive tribal areas. They now enjoy a safe haven there. Cross-border attacks into Afghanistan have escalated, and al-Qaeda’s supporters enjoy a strong presence in Pakistan’s military and intelligence services.

Over the next four years, Pakistan will likely be the most important country to the U.S. in its war against Sunni jihadist forces. Unfortunately, many of the problems that America will need to confront appear intractable at present. The next president will have to devise a coherent approach to Pakistan that includes intensive efforts to create more opportunities for America.
Al-Qaeda’s Recovery

Al-Qaeda’s recovery in Pakistan was several years in the making. After the group’s leadership relocated to the federally administered tribal areas (FATA), they made an effort to entrench themselves in the country’s tribal structure. Eventually, they felt confident enough to try to assassinate Pakistan’s then-president Pervez Musharraf multiple times.

Though Pakistan’s military responded with a campaign to flush al-Qaeda out of the tribal areas, the military suffered so many losses that Musharraf eventually concluded that he had no option but to deal with his would-be killers. In March and September 2006, he consummated both halves of the Waziristan accords, peace agreements that essentially ceded Waziristan to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. As part of the accords, Pakistan’s military agreed that it would no longer carry out air or ground strikes in Waziristan, and that it would disband its human intelligence network. The accords even allowed non-Pakistani militants to continue to reside in Waziristan if they made an unenforceable promise to “keep the peace.”

The failure of these accords was predictable and almost immediate. Shortly after they were signed, a U.S. military official told the Associated Press that “American troops on Afghanistan’s eastern border have seen a threefold increase” in cross-border attacks from Pakistan.
The Accords March On

The fact that militants violated each of the conditions of the Waziristan accords did not stop the government from making further deals. In 2007, Musharraf reached agreements with Islamic militants in the regions of Swat, Bajaur, and Mohmand.

The negotiation process accelerated after a new parliamentary majority swept into power in February 2008, riding a wave of anti-American sentiment. While negotiations and peace deals with militants were already a part of Pakistan’s political landscape, the scale of negotiations ushered in by the new majority was unprecedented. Talks opened with virtually every militant outfit in the country, and the government entered into seven agreements encompassing nine districts.

It was easy to predict the failure of the Waziristan accords, in which the government received only unenforceable promises from extremists. There is no reason to believe that the new accords will yield a different result. Indeed, they are likely to increase the geographic areas where Pakistan’s extremist groups find refuge.
Advantage: Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other affiliated groups derive great advantage from the accords in Pakistan, as well as the failure of Pakistan’s military to effectively police the country. The relative security that al-Qaeda’s senior leadership enjoys has enabled a significant recovery. American military and intelligence officials believe that more than 100 training camps are operational in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province and tribal areas, up from an estimated 29 camps last year in Waziristan.

The combination of al-Qaeda’s revamped leadership, new training camps, and the new geographic space in which the terror group can operate creates an elevated risk of terrorist attacks in the West. The 9/11 Commission Report warned that to carry out a catastrophic act of terror like 9/11, an organization requires “time, space, and the ability to perform competent planning,” as well as “a command structure able to make necessary decisions and possessing the authority and contacts to assemble needed people, money, and materials.” Al-Qaeda now enjoys all of these in Pakistan.

The challenges in Pakistan have also harmed coalition efforts in Afghanistan. The dramatic July 13 attack on a small base in Afghanistan’s Nuristan province–in which American troops were almost overrun by a heavily armed insurgent force of nearly 200–is now seen as symbolic of the growing difficulties of the Afghanistan war. Militant groups based in Pakistan have also been able to carry out a string of fresh attacks and bombings in other provinces along the Pakistan border. Thus, military strategists increasingly see Pakistan as the key to a successful Afghanistan campaign. A senior American military officer serving in Afghanistan recently stated, “If we don’t fix the FATA, we won’t win Afghanistan.”
Pitfalls to Action

Unfortunately, there are substantial barriers to an effective U.S. response. While current American military strategy in Pakistan consists of covert pinpoint strikes aimed at high-value terrorist targets, truly depriving al-Qaeda of its safe haven would likely require a sustained ground or air campaign.

As one senior American military intelligence officer stated, “We’re talking about a Serbia-style prolonged campaign.” NATO’s air campaign against Serbia’s military lasted from March 24 through June 11, 1999, and comprised over 38,000 missions involving approximately 1,000 aircraft and a barrage of Tomahawk missiles. A similar campaign in Pakistan’s tribal areas, the officer said, would “heavily degrade” but not eliminate al-Qaeda. Such a campaign, however, would be highly destabilizing for Pakistan–something America cannot afford when dealing with a country possessing nuclear weapons.

According to one Pakistani diplomat, the effectiveness of U.S. strikes could be enhanced through the coordination of American airpower and Pakistani ground forces. “Coordinated military moves would break the backs of these guys,” he said.

But some members of the American intelligence community are more skeptical. As one official said, the Pakistani “military has about a third we can trust and about a third on the opposite side. If there’s a dirty unit, the militants will melt straight through it.”

There are also barriers to increasing American covert actions. Pakistan’s topography makes it difficult to insert and remove forces without being detected. Moreover, U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) act in small teams and are lightly armed; they could be overwhelmed by larger contingents of heavily armed al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
Blueprint for a New President

The dearth of military options may make the problems in Pakistan seem intractable. However, the next president can build our options there if he adopts three major strategic goals.

The next president will have to use direct and sustained diplomacy with Pakistan’s government. According to Seth Jones of the RAND Corporation, “We need a clear diplomatic message. Al-Qaeda is regenerated, and a number of recent terror plots are linked back to [Pakistan's] tribal areas. Pakistan faces a choice not too different from what it faced on 9/11.”

In July 2008, a CIA deputy director reportedly took a secret trip to Islamabad to present senior Pakistani officials with information about the ties between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and extremists in the country’s tribal areas. According to the New York Times, this trip “seemed to be the bluntest American warning to Pakistan since shortly after the September 11 attacks about the ties between the spy service and Islamic militants.”

Diplomacy must not be loud and blustering; it needs to be direct yet also behind-the-scenes. One reason that Musharraf’s party was trounced in the February elections is that he was seen as an American puppet. Diplomatic pressure that is too overt may put Pakistani politicians in a position where they jeopardize their political future by doing the right thing.

Second, the U.S. needs to build up military options by developing a better understanding of Pakistan. A critical factor in Iraq’s turnaround during General David Petraeus’s tenure as the top U.S. commander has been our improved ability to align with tribal elements. The Anbar Awakening movement–a collection of Sunni tribesmen, Iraqi nationalists, ex-Baathists, and others united in the goal of driving al-Qaeda from their country–has been a vital ally in destroying the safe havens al-Qaeda once enjoyed in Iraq. We won’t quickly find an ally in Pakistan of the Awakening movement’s caliber, but we must begin to understand the intentions and capabilities of local actors. Indeed, the Pakistani tribes apparently differ in their approach to al-Qaeda, with the northern tribes more welcoming than the southern ones. Exploiting this should be a high priority.

Moreover, we need to better understand the patronage networks that al-Qaeda and the Taliban benefit from, and use this information to undermine them. The U.S. can support tribal groups that oppose al-Qaeda and the Taliban against rivals who favor them. We can work with Pakistani and other intelligence services to shut down the financial apparatus that backs al-Qaeda in Pakistan through Treasury actions, intelligence operations, or by arresting their operatives.

Third, the U.S. should work to undermine support for the Taliban and al-Qaeda within Pakistan’s ISI and military. It is no secret that extremist sympathizers exist within both institutions. This goal can be achieved through both covert operations and diplomacy. At the same time, the U.S. may be able to entice key actors in Pakistan to turn against al-Qaeda. For example, the U.S. could enhance the prestige of commanders and units within Pakistan’s military who willingly cooperate by earmarking military aid for specific regiments or commanders. Similarly, high-level U.S. military training could focus on units and commanders who have demonstrated their willingness to undertake military or policing efforts against extremist groups.

Whatever road we take in Pakistan will involve a substantial time commitment, and progress is likely to be slow. But it is vital to quickly develop a coherent Pakistan policy. The worst possible scenario would be for the next president to wait until tragedy has struck again.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is the vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and author of My Year Inside Radical Islam.

Filed Under: Featured, Politics, Terrorism

RIGHTS: Fighting the ‘War on Terror’

September 8, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – Global Politics Online – IPS
Monday, September 08, 2008

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2008.

Julio Godoy

PARIS, Sep 8 (IPS) – The ”war on terror” in the aftermath of the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001 has undermined human rights globally, according to activists and experts who attended a UN conference in Paris.

”Immediately after Sep. 11 we saw a dramatic change in government policies with regard to terrorism, suspected terrorism, and the monitoring of citizens, with the underlying assumption that human rights norms as established in conventions and treaties no longer apply,” Joanne Mariner, director of the terrorism and counter-terrorism programme at Human Rights Watch said at the conference in Paris last week.

The trend has worsened over the last seven years, Mariner said.

Some 2,000 human rights experts and activists attended the annual United Nations Department of Public Information Non-Governmental Organisations Conference.

The UN DPI/NGO conference on ‘Reaffirming Human Rights for All: The Universal Declaration at 60′ was held at the headquarters of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). The conference this year commemorated the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in Paris in December 1948.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a video message that the delegates were gathered ”to commemorate one of humankind’s greatest achievements.”

But it was not a celebratory mood at the conference. The meeting was dominated by the sense that human rights have been globally weakened by the war between ”terrorism and counter-terrorism” both at the national and the international level.

Mariner told a conference roundtable on Human Rights and Human security that the U.S. suppression of rights was only part of a global trend. ”Nearly 80 countries have adopted counter-terrorism legislation since September 2001,” Mariner said.

”There is a global pattern to suppress the rights and freedoms of individuals through new laws. These laws cut back on individual rights and human rights norms, and have greatly increased government powers to investigate, detain, and imprison people with minimum judicial oversight, minimum transparency, and very little procedural safeguards.”

Mariner and other participants blamed some UN institutions for cooperating with this suppression of human rights. ”Within the UN, the balance of power on the question of human rights has tilted in favour of the Security Council and the bodies it has created specifically to deal with the issue of terrorism,” Mariner said.

The UN Security Council, Mariner said, has been passing resolution after resolution on terrorism, all of which have a marked ”legislative character”, requiring states to pass ever new laws against suspected terrorism, to spot the flow of money, on migration, and to incarcerate suspects.

Workshops at the conference covered issues such as ‘Addressing Gross Human Rights Violations: Prevention and Accountability’, ‘Dealing with the Past in Post-Conflict Societies: Community-Based Responses to Genocide and Mass Violence’, and ‘The Right to Know, the Right to Truth: How Archives and Records help Combat Impunity’.

Daniel Bekele, head of policy research and advocacy at Action Aid Ethiopia, and a former prisoner of conscience in his country, said African civil society activism has been growing over the past few years. ”But, at the same time, a significant number of countries on the continent have been abusing their muscle to silence civil society organisations, in particular those who work on human rights issues. The pretext is the protection of national, regional or sometimes even international security concerns.”

The conference also explored education as a human right. Ahead of the International Year of Human Rights Learning to be launched Dec. 10, and as a complement to the World Programme for Human Rights Education (2005-2009), the conference considered ways of advancing education, learning and dialogue about human rights as a way of life.

The conference considered practical measures to integrate human rights education and learning into the programmes and activities of governments, civil society, media and the Internet, faith-based organisations, academics and the private sector, with a view to developing a learning process at the community level worldwide.

Filed Under: Human Rights, Report, Security, Terrorism, United States

LANKA GROPING FOR REALTIME ANSWERS TO TAMIL SU-DOKU

September 6, 2008 By

Global Geopolitics – Global News Blog – Global Politics Online
Saturday, September 06, 2008

© Copyright 2008 Malladi Rama Rao. All rights reserved.

By Malladi Rama Rao

Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the non-state terrorist group, is no longer the mighty tiger it once was. The sustained military campaign has made them either move out or be edged out of the places in the North where they had established their hold by acts of commissions and omissions of Colombo, Chennai and Delhi. No powerful voices are being heard in support of Pirabhakaran and company in Northern Sri Lanka and across the Palk Straits in Tamilnadu. Even the Tamil Diaspora, who are the enthusiastic supporters and financiers of the Tigers have become silent as if numbed by the army push and by the plight of fighters for a ‘homeland’.

And the United States, the El’dorado for the impoverished people of the Third World of which Sri Lanka and its Northern region are a part and parcel, has been reticent, confining itself to an occasional homily. What had happened to the pro-LTTE lobby in that country since, in the words of Colombia University scholar, Ahilan Kadirgamar, ‘systematic lobbying by the LTTE has reached out to more members of the US Congress than the Sri Lankan embassy in Washington has’.

All this should be sweet music to President Rajapakse and his advisors. And they have proved that the State cannot allow any challenge to its authority unanswered by non-state players who operate on the fringes with AK-47s. Success on the war front confers new responsibilities and duties on the State. The world will be watching Colombo closely to see its responses to the emerging situation.

On their part, President and his team will do well to remember that subduing an insurgent group like LTTE is not a one off-affair. Tigers have so many front organisations, which are flourishing, besides naval and air wings. One suicide bomber is enough to create mayhem and put to naught the gains in the battle field.

A short cut to ‘political nirvana’ is, letting the gene out of the devolution bottle. The All Party Representative Conference (APRC) appears to be getting ready with its final take. Whether the APRC will offer a new wine is a matter of conjecture at this stage. The devolution talk has passed through a tortuous course down the years particularly after the Thimpu conclave. So expectations of a quick dividend will be neither here nor there. Nor for that matter any conviction that after battle field reverses the LTTE would disintegrate and disappear.

As they grope for ‘real time’ answers’ to the Tamil Su-doku, the strategy planners will, I hope, find enough food for thought in the deliberations at the recent Asia Society meeting in New York on the theme ‘Sri Lanka at Sixty’. Almost all speakers examined the larger issues of Sinhala nationalism and Tamil nationalism and how to make these conflicting currents integrate into the national mainstream. While unhesitatingly holding the LTTE terrorism as the root cause of failure of Sri Lankan state, the distinguished panel was unanimous that defeating LTTE militarily would not mean that ‘the problem of Tamils in Sri Lanka will go away’.

‘The core of the Tamil problem is political and it should be addressed politically’, said one scholar. Agreed another saying, “Sri Lankan government must make a distinction between LTTE and other moderate Tamil civilians. Equating genuine Tamil demands with LTTE’s terrorism is dangerous’.

Some speakers – some of them distinguished academics from Sri Lanka itself, took Sri Lankan ministers and the army chief to task for their ‘war cry’. The reference was to the repeated statements that this time around ‘It (war against LTTE) will be a fight to the finish’. Such statements are irresponsible and have led to an opinion gaining ground that all Tamilians are LTTE activists. This is patently unfair to the Tamilians, who have been at the receiving end of the LTTE for their convictions as also boldness to stand up and be counted at grave threat to their lives and in most trying circumstances.

For a state like Sri Lanka in transition, chauvinism of any variety is bad. Over the years both Sinhala chauvinists and the LTTE have become complimentary to each other. One needs the other to survive. So, as highlighted by the Asia Society panel discussion, the government in Colombo should turn its focus to check-mate Sinhala chauvinism which feeds on majority Buddhist communalism. Otherwise the gains from taming the LTTE war machine will get frittered away.

The issue here is not whether the Rajapakse government, like all its predecessors, is playing into the hands of Sinhalese nationalists. The issue is what Rajapakse government is willing to do and in what policy and time frame. Unfortunately, the government has not come out with any clarity thus far with all its energies limited to the twin agenda of ‘war to the finish’ and local elections in the east and north. It also gives the impression of bogged down in political games of one-upmanship vis-à-vis JVP and UNP.

In my view, President Rajapakse is in a position to use the devolution gene to put the ‘traditional concerns’ in the much larger national and historical perspective. Past cannot be undone. What can be undone are fears that the past actions had perpetuated. There is no set formula.

Probably, one way of addressing the issue is making the Tamils feel they are genuine partners in the governance of the country. All this while breathing life into regional and local structures of governance which are at the cutting edge of delivery system whether it is a Tamil or Sinhala dominated area.

Sinhala Chauvinists may not like my suggestion but according to me one way of securing a talking point with huge political potential is creation of Number Two slot for the Tamils in the government through an amendment to the statute. That will not be construed as a tokenism though power politics have been reduced to tokenisms across South Asia of late. In so far the question whether it should be an elected post or a nominated one is concerned, it is a matter of detail. Experience, however, suggests that the Number Two should not be elected.

Since there is a talk of ‘snap’ elections, the whole devolution package can be thrown up as a poll plank. And the people, weary as they are of bullets and bombs and political assassinations, will welcome any concrete action plan that makes everyone in the island nation partners in its progress.

There is no gain in saying that Colombo must put its act together. Without much dithering and procrastination. Because there is a talk of UN implementing R2P (right to protect minorities) as if Sri Lanka is another Darfur where the world body can intervene any time.

The possibility of this talk gaining further currency cannot be ruled out as human rights campaigners are having a field day in the ‘battle zone’ these days with their ‘grievances’, and as the Western media continues to portray the LTTE as separatists and revolutionaries ignoring the ground reality that Tigers are armed insurgents.

About the Author

Malladi Rama Rao is an analyst and writer on the Indian political scene and geo-political and security issues of South Asia. He directs a Weekly Feature Service in English, Syndicate Features, in colloboration with his wife Vaniram. He is also the India Editor of Asian Tribune.

SYNDICATE FEATURES

B-308, Puneet Apts. B-10, Vasundhara Enclave, Delhi; Ph -22617660 E-mail: syndicatefeatures@rediffmail.com

Featured Image Credit

Author: Ulflarsen
Wikimedia Commons

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation

Filed Under: Conflict, Featured, Terrorism
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »