http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/01/06/2003433061
By Parris H.chang 張旭成
Tuesday, Jan 06, 2009, Page 8
A Chinese naval fleet consisting of two destroyers and a supply ship departed on Dec. 26 on a mission to fight pirates in the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters. The mission is China’s first outside the Pacific in modern times.
Piracy off the Somali coast intensified last year with 20 percent of the 1,265 Chinese ships passing through the area coming under attack.
The UN has passed three resolutions since July calling for the international community to respond to the piracy problem. More than a dozen warships, including vessels from the US, Russia, the UK, France, India and Saudi Arabia, have answered the call, leaving China the only major power not taking an active part in the process.
By participating in such a mission, China’s image as a world power may improve. Until now, China’s external behavior can hardly be described as that of a responsible international stakeholder worthy of the status of a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
For example, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs James Shinn told US Congress that Chinese state-owned companies have repeatedly violated UN Security Council sanctions that ban the sales of weapons, military equipment and nuclear technology to Iran. Shinn said in his testimony that he was particularly concerned at China’s sales of weapons to Iran and accused Tehran of arming and supporting militant groups in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan that “target and kill Americans and our allies.”
On several occasions, the US has imposed sanctions on Chinese firms for selling Iran weapons, weapons-related products and other dual-use commodities that can have a military use, but Beijing has protested and condemned those US moves.
China has been on the record opposing UN sanctions against Iran, which has withstood three rounds of limited sanctions because of its suspected development of nuclear technology. Tehran can continue to count on China — a longstanding and staunch ally of Iran — and Russia, now at odds with the West over Georgia, to delay, obstruct and water down any stronger punitive measures sought by the US and the EU.
While some European companies have cut trade with Iran or withdrawn investments to pressure Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, Chinese firms have stepped in to fill the void and take the business. For example, Royal Dutch Shell and French oil giant Total pulled out of planned investments in Iran — only for China National Offshore Oil Corp and Iran’s Pars Oil and Gas company to reach an agreement last July to exploit the North Pas gas field. More than 100 Chinese State companies are working in Iran on airports, ports, highways, dams, steel manufacturing and telecommunication projects. Two-way China-Iran trade is expected to reach US$11 billion, making China Iran’s No. 2 trading partner, behind only the United Arab Emirates.
Since the Shah’s ouster in 1979, Beijing has viewed the Islamic Republic of Iran as a highly valuable anti-Western partner and sought to cultivate and forge a strategic partnership with Tehran. China and Iran share the belief that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” and have closely cooperated to challenge and counterbalance US domination in the Middle East.
Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the only way in and out of the Persian Gulf. Such a threat is taken seriously, as Iran has large numbers of Chinese made C-801 and C-802 anti-ship missiles deployed in coastal batteries along the eastern shore of the waterway and Chinese-supplied Houdong fast patrol boats equipped with C-802s, capable of launching high-speed attacks against the US Fifth Fleet’s warships.
It should be emphasized that Sino-Iranian cooperation on arms also includes nuclear weapons technology, biological weapons and chemical weapons. While Beijing has vehemently denied accusations of secret sales of weapons of mass destruction to Iran and other rogue states, international intelligence agencies have over the years collected enough evidence that identifies China as among the world’s leading proliferators.
For diplomatic and other reasons, the US and the EU rarely blow the whistle on China’s illicit and outrageous violation of international anti-proliferation goals.
As China rises in economic and military strength, the world has a stake in China being genuinely peace-loving and responsible, and showing respect for human rights, international rules and institutions.
Parris H. Chang, professor emeritus of political science at Pennsylvania State University, is chairman of the Taiwan Institute for Political, Economic and Strategic Studies.
January 06, 2009
Leading Features of the International Security Landscape in 2008
Leading Features of the International Security Landscape in 2008
Source: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90884/6566867.html
As the footsteps of the incoming year are heard around the corner, The Study Times is honored with an exclusive interview with Comrade Xiong Guangkai, Chairman of China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS) focusing on issues related to the situation of international security in 2008. Chairman (CIISS) Xiong Guangkai stated that the international security situation in 2008 on the whole has retained the basic posture of peace and stability, and yet has been dented by the palpable growth of the unstable and uncertain elements, which is evidenced by the remaining grave presence of traditional threats to security and the meteoric spreading of the non-traditional threats to security that are looming larger than before. Therefore, we are required to be mindful of possible dangers while enjoying the present security, foster a comprehensive "grand security concept", and deal properly with the possible impacts inflicted on China by the intricate situation generated by the interlaced state of the current traditional security and the non-traditional security issues.
Question (hereinafter referred to as "Q"): 2008 will be remembered as quite an unusual year. As the running year eased into the incoming one, could you please share with our readers your overall assessment of the international security landscape in 2008.
Answer (hereinafter referred to as "A"): Due to the forward pushing of the in-depth development of the world trends of multi-polarization, economic globalization and the building of information-centric society, the international balance of forces in recent years has witnessed novel rise and fall, while the interests of various states have experienced fresh changes, which has led to the constant retooling of the diplomatic and security strategies by the major world powers. It is against this general backdrop that we examine and analyze the international security situation.
2008 stands out to be quite an unusual year with the international security situation going through numerous complicated changes that can be reduced to the following three principal ones: To begin with, peace and development remain the themes of the times with the international situation in stable status generally, and yet the insecurity, unstable and uncertain elements have decidedly increased with some areas experiencing fresh chaos and even war. The representative example of the latter development is the case of the Russia-Georgia armed skirmish which features "minor clash with a grand strategy". Secondly, the trend of the traditional threats to security and the non-traditional threats to security being intertwined is becoming increasingly prominent with traditional threats to security remaining gravely present while the non-traditional threats to security being promptly stretched to cover such sectors as climate, food, energy, economy, finance and what not in addition to terrorism. The most projected one is the international crisis triggered off by the American sub-prime mortgage crisis. Thirdly, the above-said developments have driven various countries to give more weight to international dialogue and cooperation in dealing with diversified security issues. While the armed forces of all the major powers are devoting great endeavor to such nuclear issues as boosting in a deep-going way the new round of revolution in military affairs and uplifting the combat capability under information-centric conditions, greater importance has been attached to building up the capability of executing military operations other than war for the sake of dealing with various threats to security.
2008 is likewise quite an unusual year for China's national security situation. China has not only been hit by the powerful tsunami of international financial crisis, but has also been nagged by such problems as "Taiwan independence" and "Tibet independence" as well as the troubles incited by the "East Turkeystan" terrorist forces in addition to the atrocious damage and heavy loses inflicted by the ice calamity and fatal earthquake. Under the leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Hu Jintao as the General Secretary, the whole nation is of one mind to tide over the hard times. Generally speaking, the fundamental state of a favorable national security for China on the whole remains unchanged, only she is still faced with numerous risks and challenges.
Q: In 2008, the hot spot issues in the global traditional security field remains now eased-up, now tense again with the rise and fall of local wars and armed conflicts. How do you view the change and development of the present international traditional security issues?
A: Traditional security issues refer to such security issues related to national sovereignty, territorial integrity, political stability and the like, epitomized in political and military domains. In the post-Cold War period, the principal traditional security issue in the international security field is the lingering hegemonism and power politics, which is prominently reflected in the following three respects in 2008: a). Local wars and armed conflicts remain a phenomenon of frequent eruption; b). the international military competition with the new revolution in military affairs as the centerpiece is getting fiercer with each passing day; c). the situation of nuclear proliferation and armament control is still grim.
The local wars and armed conflicts in the present world have taken on the features of "high occurrence, being relatively concentrated in some regions and with complicated and diversified causes". The year of 2008 saw the eruption of 46 local wars and armed conflicts worldwide, showing a sharp jump from the 33 cases befell the corresponding period last year. The Middle East and South Asia are the two regions where relatively more local wars and armed conflicts popped up. The Afghanistan War staged by the U.S. in 2001 and the Iraq War in 2003 are unable to wind up to this day. The American forces are still bogged down in the quagmires in Iraq while the security situation in Afghanistan has got worsened rapidly, forcing the US forces to gradually shift the strategic priority to Afghanistan and new developments have also been detected in the local turbulent situation in the Middle East and South Asia. What merits attention is that armed conflict flared up between Russia and Georgia on August 8 over the South Ossetia issue. The armed conflict lasted four and half days with over 30,000 troops being thrown in. Judging from the size, intensity and duration of the said conflict, it is no more than a "minor skirmish", and yet its fallout should not be overlooked. Because both parties of the conflict fielded forces from the three services of the Army, the Air Force and the Navy, and got locked in a contest of strength in a multidimensional battlefield, in which a certain scale of warfare of public opinion, psychological warfare, legal warfare and cyber warfare were carried out. What is worth thinking deeply about is that the Russia-Georgia conflict broke out against the strategic backdrop of Russia in rapid recovery of national strength and the U.S and Europe busying in pushing forward with their drive of eastward expansion, hence with a deeper strategic background of geopolitics and complicated historical root. Therefore, we should not confine ourselves to taking a purely military view of the conflict, and what's more, its strategic impact on the international security situation is far from coming to a close.
At the same time, the new round of revolution in military affairs with informationization as the centerpiece is unfolding in various major powers in a deep-going way and in the midst of constant adjustment. All the major powers are progressively swelling their input in military outlay. In the FY-2008, the U.S. military budget hits USD $481.4 billion, showing a year-on-year hike of 4.35%; the British military budget stands roughly at USD $64.6 billion with 0.6% year-on-year increase; USD $52.2 billion for France with a 1.4% year-on-year rise; and USD $40.2 billion for Japan, also retaining a rather high figure. To parallel with this is the neck-snapping development of the strategic nuclear force in major world powers. The U.S. has issued the "National Security and Nuclear Arms in the 21st Century" which reassessed the nuclear security environment and is considering retooling its nuclear policy; Russia has sped up its pace of deploying its mobile "Topol-M" intercontinental ballistic missile and test-fired the "Bulava" submarine-launched ballistic missile for several times, putting priority on lifting the capability in breaking through the missile defense and on raising the accuracy of strike. The U.S.-Russia rivalry centering on the deployment of the missile defense system continues to develop. To begin with, the U.S. has ramped up its push for deploying missile defense system in East Europe. The U.S. and Czech Republic signed an agreement on July 8, 2008, granting the U.S. the right to establish an missile defense radar base about 60 km to the Southwest of Prague and is projected to be in operation in 2013. Then on August 20, the U.S. signed an agreement with Poland mandating the U.S. to establish a missile defense base in that country. The U.S. agenda says that it will put in place 10 missile interception systems in the northern part of Poland prior to 2013. To counter the American move of installing missile defense systems, Russia has declared that it will deploy Eskander operational-tactical missile system in Kaliningrad State and postpone the plan of dismantling the Kozelsk intercontinental ballistic missile division. The fierce rivalry in the space is mounting. The U.S. has been keeping on developing anti-satellite weapons and the space-to-land strike weapon systems in an effort to retain its leading edge in the space. On February 21, 2008, the U.S. launched a "Standard"-3 I A anti-missile interception missile from the U.S. warship anchoring near Hawaii and successfully knocked off a run-away spy satellite about 247 km above the earth. In the meanwhile, Russia has stepped up the development of the "Glonass" satellite global navigation positioning system. India blasted off its first circumlunar flying device. Japan, on the other hand, has approved the Basic Law on Universe clearing the legal hurdle for exploiting the space for military purpose. The major powers continue to deepen the military reform. Russia has proclaimed that it will enforce the military reform of downsizing the armed forces and optimizing the structure of the officers by 2012, keeps on pushing forward its process of turning the Army divisions into brigades. Japan on its part has trotted out the Reform of the Defense Agency, planning to overhaul the policy of directing the military by civil officials and the leadership and commanding system of the armed forces. In a nutshell, a new round of international arms race with quality building as the centerpiece is in full swing.
Besides, the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue and the Iran nuclear issue remain to be the hotspot issues in the international security sector, the nuclear proliferation sector in particular. The work to disable the nuclear facilities of the Korean nuclear complex at Yongbyon is making hard-earned headways in twists and turns, with the newly recorded progresses showing that North Korea has officially submitted to the six-party talks a nuclear declaration list and demolished the 5 megawatts nuclear reaction cooling towers at Yongbyon; and the U.S. State Department declared officially on Oct. 11, 2008 to remove Korea from the list of countries offering support to terrorism. At the third meeting of the chief negotiators of the sixth round of six party-talks on Dec, 2008, consensus was arrived at on some issues, and yet falling short of reaching an agreement on verifying the nuclear declaration list submitted by North Korea, which indicates that numerous difficulties remain to be overcome before the ultimate settlement of the Korea nuclear issue, and worse still, even backslides can not be ruled out. The Iran nuclear issue remains at a deadlock. The U.S. and Europe bypassed the UN Security Council to impose a number of sanctions on Iran in an attempt of forcing Iran to give up nuclear development but of no avail. On its part, Iran has been playing both hard and soft tactics to deal with the U.S. and Europe in an endeavor to win more time for its nuclear development. So far, peaceful settlement of the Iran nuclear issue remains the primary choice of the international community and the door for negotiation has not been closed and yet the possibility of deterioration cannot be ruled out.
China pursues an independent foreign policy of peace and has made positive contributions to seeking for peaceful solutions to international conflicts and to promoting anti-nuclear proliferation and arms control. However, the complete reunification of China is yet to wrap up, and therefore obliges us to fight against traditional security issues like secession and subversion. In addition, the disputes between China and some neighboring countries over the territorial sovereignty, the sovereign right over territorial waters as well as over the maritime rights and interests are yet to be settled, and accordingly that too requires proper handling.
Source: http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90884/6566867.html
As the footsteps of the incoming year are heard around the corner, The Study Times is honored with an exclusive interview with Comrade Xiong Guangkai, Chairman of China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS) focusing on issues related to the situation of international security in 2008. Chairman (CIISS) Xiong Guangkai stated that the international security situation in 2008 on the whole has retained the basic posture of peace and stability, and yet has been dented by the palpable growth of the unstable and uncertain elements, which is evidenced by the remaining grave presence of traditional threats to security and the meteoric spreading of the non-traditional threats to security that are looming larger than before. Therefore, we are required to be mindful of possible dangers while enjoying the present security, foster a comprehensive "grand security concept", and deal properly with the possible impacts inflicted on China by the intricate situation generated by the interlaced state of the current traditional security and the non-traditional security issues.
Question (hereinafter referred to as "Q"): 2008 will be remembered as quite an unusual year. As the running year eased into the incoming one, could you please share with our readers your overall assessment of the international security landscape in 2008.
Answer (hereinafter referred to as "A"): Due to the forward pushing of the in-depth development of the world trends of multi-polarization, economic globalization and the building of information-centric society, the international balance of forces in recent years has witnessed novel rise and fall, while the interests of various states have experienced fresh changes, which has led to the constant retooling of the diplomatic and security strategies by the major world powers. It is against this general backdrop that we examine and analyze the international security situation.
2008 stands out to be quite an unusual year with the international security situation going through numerous complicated changes that can be reduced to the following three principal ones: To begin with, peace and development remain the themes of the times with the international situation in stable status generally, and yet the insecurity, unstable and uncertain elements have decidedly increased with some areas experiencing fresh chaos and even war. The representative example of the latter development is the case of the Russia-Georgia armed skirmish which features "minor clash with a grand strategy". Secondly, the trend of the traditional threats to security and the non-traditional threats to security being intertwined is becoming increasingly prominent with traditional threats to security remaining gravely present while the non-traditional threats to security being promptly stretched to cover such sectors as climate, food, energy, economy, finance and what not in addition to terrorism. The most projected one is the international crisis triggered off by the American sub-prime mortgage crisis. Thirdly, the above-said developments have driven various countries to give more weight to international dialogue and cooperation in dealing with diversified security issues. While the armed forces of all the major powers are devoting great endeavor to such nuclear issues as boosting in a deep-going way the new round of revolution in military affairs and uplifting the combat capability under information-centric conditions, greater importance has been attached to building up the capability of executing military operations other than war for the sake of dealing with various threats to security.
2008 is likewise quite an unusual year for China's national security situation. China has not only been hit by the powerful tsunami of international financial crisis, but has also been nagged by such problems as "Taiwan independence" and "Tibet independence" as well as the troubles incited by the "East Turkeystan" terrorist forces in addition to the atrocious damage and heavy loses inflicted by the ice calamity and fatal earthquake. Under the leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Hu Jintao as the General Secretary, the whole nation is of one mind to tide over the hard times. Generally speaking, the fundamental state of a favorable national security for China on the whole remains unchanged, only she is still faced with numerous risks and challenges.
Q: In 2008, the hot spot issues in the global traditional security field remains now eased-up, now tense again with the rise and fall of local wars and armed conflicts. How do you view the change and development of the present international traditional security issues?
A: Traditional security issues refer to such security issues related to national sovereignty, territorial integrity, political stability and the like, epitomized in political and military domains. In the post-Cold War period, the principal traditional security issue in the international security field is the lingering hegemonism and power politics, which is prominently reflected in the following three respects in 2008: a). Local wars and armed conflicts remain a phenomenon of frequent eruption; b). the international military competition with the new revolution in military affairs as the centerpiece is getting fiercer with each passing day; c). the situation of nuclear proliferation and armament control is still grim.
The local wars and armed conflicts in the present world have taken on the features of "high occurrence, being relatively concentrated in some regions and with complicated and diversified causes". The year of 2008 saw the eruption of 46 local wars and armed conflicts worldwide, showing a sharp jump from the 33 cases befell the corresponding period last year. The Middle East and South Asia are the two regions where relatively more local wars and armed conflicts popped up. The Afghanistan War staged by the U.S. in 2001 and the Iraq War in 2003 are unable to wind up to this day. The American forces are still bogged down in the quagmires in Iraq while the security situation in Afghanistan has got worsened rapidly, forcing the US forces to gradually shift the strategic priority to Afghanistan and new developments have also been detected in the local turbulent situation in the Middle East and South Asia. What merits attention is that armed conflict flared up between Russia and Georgia on August 8 over the South Ossetia issue. The armed conflict lasted four and half days with over 30,000 troops being thrown in. Judging from the size, intensity and duration of the said conflict, it is no more than a "minor skirmish", and yet its fallout should not be overlooked. Because both parties of the conflict fielded forces from the three services of the Army, the Air Force and the Navy, and got locked in a contest of strength in a multidimensional battlefield, in which a certain scale of warfare of public opinion, psychological warfare, legal warfare and cyber warfare were carried out. What is worth thinking deeply about is that the Russia-Georgia conflict broke out against the strategic backdrop of Russia in rapid recovery of national strength and the U.S and Europe busying in pushing forward with their drive of eastward expansion, hence with a deeper strategic background of geopolitics and complicated historical root. Therefore, we should not confine ourselves to taking a purely military view of the conflict, and what's more, its strategic impact on the international security situation is far from coming to a close.
At the same time, the new round of revolution in military affairs with informationization as the centerpiece is unfolding in various major powers in a deep-going way and in the midst of constant adjustment. All the major powers are progressively swelling their input in military outlay. In the FY-2008, the U.S. military budget hits USD $481.4 billion, showing a year-on-year hike of 4.35%; the British military budget stands roughly at USD $64.6 billion with 0.6% year-on-year increase; USD $52.2 billion for France with a 1.4% year-on-year rise; and USD $40.2 billion for Japan, also retaining a rather high figure. To parallel with this is the neck-snapping development of the strategic nuclear force in major world powers. The U.S. has issued the "National Security and Nuclear Arms in the 21st Century" which reassessed the nuclear security environment and is considering retooling its nuclear policy; Russia has sped up its pace of deploying its mobile "Topol-M" intercontinental ballistic missile and test-fired the "Bulava" submarine-launched ballistic missile for several times, putting priority on lifting the capability in breaking through the missile defense and on raising the accuracy of strike. The U.S.-Russia rivalry centering on the deployment of the missile defense system continues to develop. To begin with, the U.S. has ramped up its push for deploying missile defense system in East Europe. The U.S. and Czech Republic signed an agreement on July 8, 2008, granting the U.S. the right to establish an missile defense radar base about 60 km to the Southwest of Prague and is projected to be in operation in 2013. Then on August 20, the U.S. signed an agreement with Poland mandating the U.S. to establish a missile defense base in that country. The U.S. agenda says that it will put in place 10 missile interception systems in the northern part of Poland prior to 2013. To counter the American move of installing missile defense systems, Russia has declared that it will deploy Eskander operational-tactical missile system in Kaliningrad State and postpone the plan of dismantling the Kozelsk intercontinental ballistic missile division. The fierce rivalry in the space is mounting. The U.S. has been keeping on developing anti-satellite weapons and the space-to-land strike weapon systems in an effort to retain its leading edge in the space. On February 21, 2008, the U.S. launched a "Standard"-3 I A anti-missile interception missile from the U.S. warship anchoring near Hawaii and successfully knocked off a run-away spy satellite about 247 km above the earth. In the meanwhile, Russia has stepped up the development of the "Glonass" satellite global navigation positioning system. India blasted off its first circumlunar flying device. Japan, on the other hand, has approved the Basic Law on Universe clearing the legal hurdle for exploiting the space for military purpose. The major powers continue to deepen the military reform. Russia has proclaimed that it will enforce the military reform of downsizing the armed forces and optimizing the structure of the officers by 2012, keeps on pushing forward its process of turning the Army divisions into brigades. Japan on its part has trotted out the Reform of the Defense Agency, planning to overhaul the policy of directing the military by civil officials and the leadership and commanding system of the armed forces. In a nutshell, a new round of international arms race with quality building as the centerpiece is in full swing.
Besides, the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue and the Iran nuclear issue remain to be the hotspot issues in the international security sector, the nuclear proliferation sector in particular. The work to disable the nuclear facilities of the Korean nuclear complex at Yongbyon is making hard-earned headways in twists and turns, with the newly recorded progresses showing that North Korea has officially submitted to the six-party talks a nuclear declaration list and demolished the 5 megawatts nuclear reaction cooling towers at Yongbyon; and the U.S. State Department declared officially on Oct. 11, 2008 to remove Korea from the list of countries offering support to terrorism. At the third meeting of the chief negotiators of the sixth round of six party-talks on Dec, 2008, consensus was arrived at on some issues, and yet falling short of reaching an agreement on verifying the nuclear declaration list submitted by North Korea, which indicates that numerous difficulties remain to be overcome before the ultimate settlement of the Korea nuclear issue, and worse still, even backslides can not be ruled out. The Iran nuclear issue remains at a deadlock. The U.S. and Europe bypassed the UN Security Council to impose a number of sanctions on Iran in an attempt of forcing Iran to give up nuclear development but of no avail. On its part, Iran has been playing both hard and soft tactics to deal with the U.S. and Europe in an endeavor to win more time for its nuclear development. So far, peaceful settlement of the Iran nuclear issue remains the primary choice of the international community and the door for negotiation has not been closed and yet the possibility of deterioration cannot be ruled out.
China pursues an independent foreign policy of peace and has made positive contributions to seeking for peaceful solutions to international conflicts and to promoting anti-nuclear proliferation and arms control. However, the complete reunification of China is yet to wrap up, and therefore obliges us to fight against traditional security issues like secession and subversion. In addition, the disputes between China and some neighboring countries over the territorial sovereignty, the sovereign right over territorial waters as well as over the maritime rights and interests are yet to be settled, and accordingly that too requires proper handling.
Chinese Military Leader on "Non-Traditional" Security Threats
January 6, 2009 (LPAC)--The "meteoric rise of non-traditional threats to security" is a leading issue for 2009, stated Gen. Xiong Guangkai, Chairman of the China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS), in an interview with The Study Times published today. General Xiong is also deputy chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army and was formerly director of intelligence for the PLA general staff. The CIISS is Beijing's leading defense policy thinktank.
While beginning with the traditional "peace and development are the leading themes" line, Xiong warned that China "is still faced with numerous risks and challenges," led by the world financial crisis. The "non-traditional security issue has a strong spreading, trans-national and global nature," Xiong said. "Therefore, it is beyond a single nation's capability to tackle the problem at its source. Accordingly, dealing with the non-traditional security issue has become one of the essential contents of the international and regional security cooperation in today's world." Xiong said that China has been using both bilateral and multilateral diplomacy to seek international cooperation to deal with non-traditional security threats.
"The current international financial crisis is pervading rapidly and stands out to be the most prominent security issue," Xiong said in the interview. This "once-in-a-hundred-year financial crisis...started with the virtual economy and proliferated to the real economy." While the U.S. and Europeans are using multi-trillion-dollar bailouts, the "effect remains to be seen," he said. Despite Beijing's national investment policies, "the impact of the international financial crisis on the growth of the Chinese economy will loom larger and larger in the coming period of time. In response to this, China must make a sufficient estimate of the difficulty ahead and deal with it meticulously and in a down-to-earth way," he said.
Fighting terrorism also "remains grim and challenging." Including the attack on Mumbai, "South Asia has projected itself to be the 'hotbed' and the 'region of frequent incidents of international terrorist attacks,'" Xiong said, noting that just from January-October 2008, there were more than 380 terrorist attacks in South Asia, 42% of the world total. China also faced increased threats, especially from Tibetan and East Turkistan secessionism.
The wildly fluctuating oil price and the food issue are also critical areas, Xiong said. "Driven by the combined effect of such elements as the devalued U.S. dollar, the soaring oil price, the increased cost of grain production and the speculation in international hedge fund etc., the futures price of the principal agricultural products at the international market soared by leaps and bounds in the first half of 2008," with prices at decades-high levels. Grain security remains an issue for China, because, despite 95% self-sufficiency, dependence upon imports is increasing
While beginning with the traditional "peace and development are the leading themes" line, Xiong warned that China "is still faced with numerous risks and challenges," led by the world financial crisis. The "non-traditional security issue has a strong spreading, trans-national and global nature," Xiong said. "Therefore, it is beyond a single nation's capability to tackle the problem at its source. Accordingly, dealing with the non-traditional security issue has become one of the essential contents of the international and regional security cooperation in today's world." Xiong said that China has been using both bilateral and multilateral diplomacy to seek international cooperation to deal with non-traditional security threats.
"The current international financial crisis is pervading rapidly and stands out to be the most prominent security issue," Xiong said in the interview. This "once-in-a-hundred-year financial crisis...started with the virtual economy and proliferated to the real economy." While the U.S. and Europeans are using multi-trillion-dollar bailouts, the "effect remains to be seen," he said. Despite Beijing's national investment policies, "the impact of the international financial crisis on the growth of the Chinese economy will loom larger and larger in the coming period of time. In response to this, China must make a sufficient estimate of the difficulty ahead and deal with it meticulously and in a down-to-earth way," he said.
Fighting terrorism also "remains grim and challenging." Including the attack on Mumbai, "South Asia has projected itself to be the 'hotbed' and the 'region of frequent incidents of international terrorist attacks,'" Xiong said, noting that just from January-October 2008, there were more than 380 terrorist attacks in South Asia, 42% of the world total. China also faced increased threats, especially from Tibetan and East Turkistan secessionism.
The wildly fluctuating oil price and the food issue are also critical areas, Xiong said. "Driven by the combined effect of such elements as the devalued U.S. dollar, the soaring oil price, the increased cost of grain production and the speculation in international hedge fund etc., the futures price of the principal agricultural products at the international market soared by leaps and bounds in the first half of 2008," with prices at decades-high levels. Grain security remains an issue for China, because, despite 95% self-sufficiency, dependence upon imports is increasing
Education and the Asian Surge
Education and the Asian Surge
A Comparison of the Education Systems in India and China
By: Charles A. Goldman, Krishna B. Kumar, Ying Liu
SOURCE: RAND
China and India have faced similar conditions and challenges in education during their rapid industrial and social transformation. The two countries started building their national education systems under comparable conditions in the late 1940s. However, different policies, strategies, and historical circumstances have led them through different routes. China has outperformed India in primary and secondary education along a broad spectrum of access, quality, and delivery indicators. India, on the other hand, enjoys a competitive edge over China in higher education. Recently, India has begun catching up with China in K-12 education, while China has already overtaken India in terms of the college enrollment and number of graduates. The respective successes and challenges of the Chinese and Indian education systems offer valuable lessons for both countries and for the rest of the developing world. The authors identify issues that deserve further attention of researchers and policymakers.
DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT
A Comparison of the Education Systems in India and China
By: Charles A. Goldman, Krishna B. Kumar, Ying Liu
SOURCE: RAND
China and India have faced similar conditions and challenges in education during their rapid industrial and social transformation. The two countries started building their national education systems under comparable conditions in the late 1940s. However, different policies, strategies, and historical circumstances have led them through different routes. China has outperformed India in primary and secondary education along a broad spectrum of access, quality, and delivery indicators. India, on the other hand, enjoys a competitive edge over China in higher education. Recently, India has begun catching up with China in K-12 education, while China has already overtaken India in terms of the college enrollment and number of graduates. The respective successes and challenges of the Chinese and Indian education systems offer valuable lessons for both countries and for the rest of the developing world. The authors identify issues that deserve further attention of researchers and policymakers.
DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT
Afghan Opium And Terror In South Asia
By Ramtanu Maitra
06 January, 2009
Countercurrents.org
Following the Mumbai massacre (Nov. 26- 29, 2008), many “important” personnel moved through the Indian Subcontinent, ostensibly with the intent of unearthing the ghastly plot that killed at least 200 people and made a mockery of India’s security. During the visits of these “important” personnel, and subsequently, only one person mentioned the thousands of tons of opium (8,200 tons in 2007, and reportedly, 421 tons of heroin) produced year after year in Afghanistan, as a major cause of the growing terrorism in the region.
In reality, the huge amount of opium is allowed to be produced not only to finance terrorists and illegal gun manufacturers, but also to infuse cash into the bankrupt world financial system, through the offshore banks. That voice of reality was heard from Moscow when, in an interview with the Russian government daily Rossiskaya Gazeta, Russia’s federal anti-narcotics service director Viktor Ivanov said: “The gathered inputs testify that regional drug baron Dawood Ibrahim had provided his logistics network for preparing and carrying out the Mumbai terror attacks.” Ivanov said the Mumbai attacks were a “burning example” of how the illegal drug-trafficking network was used for carrying out terrorism. “The super profits of the narco-mafia through Afghan heroin trafficking have become a powerful source of financing organized crime and terrorist networks, destabilizing the political systems, including in Central Asia and Caucasus,” Ivanov said at the fifth India-Russia meeting of the joint working group on combatting international terrorism, in mid-December. The Indian delegation was led by Vivek Katju, Special Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs; the Russian delegation was led by Anatoly Safonov, Special Representative of the President.
The Drug-Led Corruption
While Dawood Ibrahim’s involvement has been tossed about in the media, what Ivanov said never gotthrough to the investigators. Or, is it that the drug angle was deliberately ignored, in order to abort the investigation by resorting to blame games, with the purpose of ending up nowhere?
The Dawood angle was also pointed out in the Asia Times by Raja Murthy on Dec. 9, when he said it is likely that, despite all the noises that are made in New Delhi, India really does not want Dawood back. His argument goes: “The catch is that India’s most infamous mafia boss has stories that powerbrokers on both sides of the border might not want the world to hear. Therein lays a reason why Ibrahim apparently continues to live lavishly—alternating between Karachi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, according to various reports including from the Pakistan media.”
Be that as it may, it is nonetheless true that there is hardly anyone with “power and authority” in Mumbai— and that includes Shiv Sena supremo Raj Thackrey and mainstream politician and former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, among many other political luminaries, law-and-order bigwigs, and almost the entire group of tax-evading Mumbai movie moguls—who is not on the take from this drug-pushing, murderous creature, now under the wings and threats of the Pakistani Inter-Services Security (ISI), British MI6, and the CIA.
But, then again, like the terrorist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Hizbul Mujahideen, Harkatul Mujahideen, et al., creatures like Dawood would remain active as long as drugs are grown aplenty to serve the interests of the powers-that-be, and to fill the coffers of bankrupt banks. That is how Dope, Inc. survives and flourishes. The deaths of common citizens are “collateral damage” that the powers-that-be ignore, by diverting attention in such ways as blaming others and creating war-like situations.
This is exactly what has been promoted through a pantomime orchestrated by New Delhi and Islamabad. Instead of addressing the devastating role of thousands of tons of opium, produced annually in Afghanistan and distributed all over, fostering terrorists in Pakistan and bringing misery to India, New Delhi and Islamabad chose to flex their muscles, providing the terrorists and jihadists alike, with a rare opportunity to portray themselvesas “patriots.” Would bringing troops to the India-Pakistan border eliminate terrorism? Did it ever achieve this objective? Would anybody with an iota of sense believe that? Then, why do it? Why create a situation in which some mischief-makers could create an incident leading to armed confrontations and the deaths of many, while solving nothing? Why? Why?
The Coverup
The answer to that question is basically the unwillingness of political leaders to protect their citizens, and instead, to kowtow to the powers-that-be. The 8,200 tons of opium, when a large chunk of it is converted into heroin, generates a lot of cash. It could be as high as a couple of hundred billion dollars when cut, re-cut, and sold to addicts in Russia, England, and elsewhere in Europe. It brings in about $100 million for the Taliban and other brands of terrorists, or jihadis, or Hindu Tamil Tigers, or Shiv Sena—you name it. That amount, generated annually, is enough to arm and train hosts of terrorists stretching from Chechnya, to Urumqi, to Mumbai. When one group of terrorists is exposed, it is converted to another brand. It is also a boon for the powers-that-be, that opium money is acceptable to all “devoutly religious” terrorists, be they Islamists, Hindufanatics, or Sikh Khalistanis. That money has no color.
It is also known that the global financial system, which is the quintessential Anglo-Dutch Liberal system designed in the 18th Century to loot the colonies, and imposed on the war-ravaged world in 1944 after President Roosevelt’s death, is presently in its death throes. The City of London is bankrupt, Wall Street is bankrupt, and the only cash that “could” keep the collapsed financial system going is drug money. This drug money, at least a good part of it, is generated in this area, with the help of Dawood Ibrahim, who works overtime on behalf of the British and runs his operation through British-controlled Dubai. Drugs come into Dubai by means of Dawood’s “mules,” protected by the ISI-MI6; and in containers which carry equipment sent to Dubai for “repair” from Kandahar and elsewhere in southern Afghanistan. British troops control the southern Helmand province in Afghanistan, where 53% of Afghanistan’s gargantuan 8,200 tons of opium were produced in 2007.
The drugs are converted to cash in Dubai, where Dawood maintains a palatial mansion, similar to the one he maintains in Karachi. Dubai is a tax-free island-city, and a major offshore banking center. The most common reason for opening an offshore bank account nowadays is the flexibility that comes with such an account, and expatriates can particularly benefit from an offshore bank account, as it will likely allow them to manage their international financial commitments with ease.
With the development of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), which is the latest free-trade zone there, flexible and unrestricted offshore banking has become big business. Many of the world’s largest banks already have a significant presence in Dubai—Abbey National Offshore, HSBC Offshore, ABN Amro, ANZ Grindlays, Banque Paribas, Banque de Caire, Barclays, Dresdner, and Merrill Lynch all have offices there. And as drug production continues in Afghanistan, and bankruptcies galore take place worldwide, more banks will surely “find” Dubai.
Drugs and Offshore Banks
Besides Dubai, most of the offshore banks are located in former British colonies. Exceptions include Cyprus, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Dominica, Cape Verde, and the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. But the vast majority are situated in former British colonies, and all are involved in money laundering: Legitimizing cash, generated from drug-sales and other smuggled goods, for the “respectable banks,” is the watchword of these offshore banks.
Arguably the most important of the Caribbean offshore financial centers is the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory run by a royal governor appointed by Queen Elizabeth II. The Caymans are mainly a mail drop and regulation-free zone, a place where hot money is welcome and few questions are asked.
It is well known in law enforcement circles that the dope trade would quickly choke on its own cash were not a significant portion of the global financial system devoted to money laundering. The offshore centers in the Caribbean were set up to facilitate the Central American drug trade, and have expanded with it.
Overseeing the Caymans financial system are a number of imperial operatives. The royal governor, Stuart Duncan Jack, is a knighted Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority is run by Timothy Ridley, who was made a Knight of the Order of the British Empire. Richard Rahn, a member in the Board of Directors of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, was an economic advisor in the 1980s to President George H.W. Bush; now he heads the European Center for Economic Growth and is a member of the oligarchical Mont Pelerin Society.
In other words, the drugs that Dawood’s mules carry are doing a yeoman’s service for the Anglo-Dutch global financial system, as well as for the terrorists who are killing innocents all over the world. Why make waves about that, New Delhi ponders.
Moreover, Indians know better than most others that where there is opium, there are the British. In Helmand province, British troops rule the roost—or rather, take good care of the City of London’s valuable cash. In India, as Prof. Amitav Ghosh (author of Sea of Poppies) pointed out during his research work, the British Empire, in the late 18th Century, became so dependent on the opium trade, that almost 60% of its revenue was generated from opium sales. Ghosh says if there had been no opium, the British Empire would have died in a minute.
That tradition continues even today. Wherever there is opium, Anglo-Dutch financiers and their American despot friends, like bees seeking honey, set up their houses. Pakistan’s powers-that-be are fully immersed in enjoyment of the drug money, at the expense of being about to lose the western part of Pakistan. But India is no less affected by it; things work differently there.
In India, when the British finally left, partitioning this country, there were about 550-odd princely states. Because of the nature of their set-up, these were completely under the grip of Whitehall and Buckingham Palace. These miserable feudal lords used to spend whatever fortune the British allowed them to have, in British hotels and brothels, vying at the same time for “rewards” from the British monarchy. This despicable class of feudalists in India was downright anti-national, and the worst of the British lackeys, to say the least. In India, the first legislation to curb the cultivation and production of opium was through the Bengal Regulation Act 4 1797 which made cultivation, production, and trade in opium a monopoly of the East India Company in the territories controlled by it. Further, the Company tried to control the trade in opium in the princely states, by creating huge transit barriers: transit tax and customs duties for the opium exported through its territory and ports. Incidentally, all the seaports were held by the East India Company. The next regulations to control opium cultivation, production, and trade were the Opium Acts of 1858 and 1878.
Subsequently, the British created mechanisms for controlling production, processing, vending, and exporting of opium, making huge profits. They began with Patna opium (in Bihar and United Provinces); extended their control over Telengana opium in the princely state of Hyderabad, under the Nizam. But it was much later that they managed to control Malwa opium, produced in today’s states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Capital formation in western India was directly linked to the smuggling of opium to China with the help of Parsee, Marwari, and Gujarat entrepreneurs.
The British also made large profits through taxes on local consumption, because they were the monopoly suppliers. While, for the British, the Dutch, and other colonial powers, opium was a major article of trade, the United States did not get involved in the opium trade, although a number of New England families, some of
them later known as the “Boston Brahmins,” transported opium to China. In the post-colonial period, the United States became heavily involved in the Central American cocaine traffic, and, during the 1980s, with Afghan opium.
The Princely State Connection
Unfortunately, the former princely states’ connection to the drug inflow has not ended, particularly among the states bordering Pakistan, whence almost all Afghan opium comes into India. A number of former princely states, such as the House of Gwalior, continued to remain involved in illegal domestic opium trafficking.
It is opium and heroin, entering from Pakistan, that comes through many of these former princely states, where the old drug-network still survives.
The March 2008 annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board noted increased trafficking and abuse of cannabis and heroin in South Asia. West African traffickers have targeted countries in South Asia, particularly India, for cocaine trafficking.
The report further said: “South American cocaine is trafficked to India in small quantities where it is exchanged for South-West Asian heroin bound for Europe and North America. India is increasingly being used as a major transit country and also as a destination country for drug trafficking. Cross-border smuggling is relatively easy because of the porous borders between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. Illicit cultivation and abuse of cannabis continue to be a problem in most of the countries in South Asia.” It has also been noted that opium and heroin enter India through Punjab, where at least four former princely states exist, as well as through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, and Mumbai, among other areas.
The Case of Three Terrorists
This brings us to the events of 1999, and the release of three top terrorists to the Taliban in Kandahar, in order to gain release of 188 hostages. Those three terrorists, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Maulana Masood Azhar, who were in Indian jails, were personally delivered by the Indian External Affairs Minister and scion of the former princely state of Jodhpur, Jaswant Singh. Jodhpur lies along the Afghan opium drug route into India.
This raises many questions. To begin with, all three were top-drawer terrorists. Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar has renewed the activity of al-Umar Mujahideen in Muzaffarabad, close to the Line of Control, in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir, and is recruiting and training youth to carry out terrorism in the Indian part of Kashmir.
Maulana Masood Azhar hit the headlines again following the Mumbai massacre, when New Delhi demanded that Islamabad hand him over as a “test of sincerity.” Masood Azhar founded the terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, and was identified by Indian investigators as the one who masterminded, along with the Pakistani ISI, the audacious attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. That assault left 14 people dead, including all five terrorists, who India says were also Pakistanis. The incident almost led to war between India and Pakistan.
Ahmed Omar Sheikh Saeed, a British subject, is perhaps the biggest fish in the kettle. He is an MI6 agent who was recruited to serve in Kosovo. Later, he was sent to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, where he kidnapped foreigners and was arrested. Following his release, Sheikh was named as an accomplice of one of the 9/11 terrorists, and later slit the throat of Daniel Pearl, an American journalist investigating the terrorist links. Although London vehemently denies that Sheikh is an MI6 agent, Sheikh’s role in the Subcontinent makes it necessary for MI6 to deny his post-Kosovo affiliation to British intelligence.
This raises another question: Was Sheikh’s release obtained through pressure from London, using a scion of a former princely state? Since so many people have since been killed by these released terrorists, it is worth getting the answer to that question.
06 January, 2009
Countercurrents.org
Following the Mumbai massacre (Nov. 26- 29, 2008), many “important” personnel moved through the Indian Subcontinent, ostensibly with the intent of unearthing the ghastly plot that killed at least 200 people and made a mockery of India’s security. During the visits of these “important” personnel, and subsequently, only one person mentioned the thousands of tons of opium (8,200 tons in 2007, and reportedly, 421 tons of heroin) produced year after year in Afghanistan, as a major cause of the growing terrorism in the region.
In reality, the huge amount of opium is allowed to be produced not only to finance terrorists and illegal gun manufacturers, but also to infuse cash into the bankrupt world financial system, through the offshore banks. That voice of reality was heard from Moscow when, in an interview with the Russian government daily Rossiskaya Gazeta, Russia’s federal anti-narcotics service director Viktor Ivanov said: “The gathered inputs testify that regional drug baron Dawood Ibrahim had provided his logistics network for preparing and carrying out the Mumbai terror attacks.” Ivanov said the Mumbai attacks were a “burning example” of how the illegal drug-trafficking network was used for carrying out terrorism. “The super profits of the narco-mafia through Afghan heroin trafficking have become a powerful source of financing organized crime and terrorist networks, destabilizing the political systems, including in Central Asia and Caucasus,” Ivanov said at the fifth India-Russia meeting of the joint working group on combatting international terrorism, in mid-December. The Indian delegation was led by Vivek Katju, Special Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs; the Russian delegation was led by Anatoly Safonov, Special Representative of the President.
The Drug-Led Corruption
While Dawood Ibrahim’s involvement has been tossed about in the media, what Ivanov said never gotthrough to the investigators. Or, is it that the drug angle was deliberately ignored, in order to abort the investigation by resorting to blame games, with the purpose of ending up nowhere?
The Dawood angle was also pointed out in the Asia Times by Raja Murthy on Dec. 9, when he said it is likely that, despite all the noises that are made in New Delhi, India really does not want Dawood back. His argument goes: “The catch is that India’s most infamous mafia boss has stories that powerbrokers on both sides of the border might not want the world to hear. Therein lays a reason why Ibrahim apparently continues to live lavishly—alternating between Karachi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, according to various reports including from the Pakistan media.”
Be that as it may, it is nonetheless true that there is hardly anyone with “power and authority” in Mumbai— and that includes Shiv Sena supremo Raj Thackrey and mainstream politician and former chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, among many other political luminaries, law-and-order bigwigs, and almost the entire group of tax-evading Mumbai movie moguls—who is not on the take from this drug-pushing, murderous creature, now under the wings and threats of the Pakistani Inter-Services Security (ISI), British MI6, and the CIA.
But, then again, like the terrorist groups Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Hizbul Mujahideen, Harkatul Mujahideen, et al., creatures like Dawood would remain active as long as drugs are grown aplenty to serve the interests of the powers-that-be, and to fill the coffers of bankrupt banks. That is how Dope, Inc. survives and flourishes. The deaths of common citizens are “collateral damage” that the powers-that-be ignore, by diverting attention in such ways as blaming others and creating war-like situations.
This is exactly what has been promoted through a pantomime orchestrated by New Delhi and Islamabad. Instead of addressing the devastating role of thousands of tons of opium, produced annually in Afghanistan and distributed all over, fostering terrorists in Pakistan and bringing misery to India, New Delhi and Islamabad chose to flex their muscles, providing the terrorists and jihadists alike, with a rare opportunity to portray themselvesas “patriots.” Would bringing troops to the India-Pakistan border eliminate terrorism? Did it ever achieve this objective? Would anybody with an iota of sense believe that? Then, why do it? Why create a situation in which some mischief-makers could create an incident leading to armed confrontations and the deaths of many, while solving nothing? Why? Why?
The Coverup
The answer to that question is basically the unwillingness of political leaders to protect their citizens, and instead, to kowtow to the powers-that-be. The 8,200 tons of opium, when a large chunk of it is converted into heroin, generates a lot of cash. It could be as high as a couple of hundred billion dollars when cut, re-cut, and sold to addicts in Russia, England, and elsewhere in Europe. It brings in about $100 million for the Taliban and other brands of terrorists, or jihadis, or Hindu Tamil Tigers, or Shiv Sena—you name it. That amount, generated annually, is enough to arm and train hosts of terrorists stretching from Chechnya, to Urumqi, to Mumbai. When one group of terrorists is exposed, it is converted to another brand. It is also a boon for the powers-that-be, that opium money is acceptable to all “devoutly religious” terrorists, be they Islamists, Hindufanatics, or Sikh Khalistanis. That money has no color.
It is also known that the global financial system, which is the quintessential Anglo-Dutch Liberal system designed in the 18th Century to loot the colonies, and imposed on the war-ravaged world in 1944 after President Roosevelt’s death, is presently in its death throes. The City of London is bankrupt, Wall Street is bankrupt, and the only cash that “could” keep the collapsed financial system going is drug money. This drug money, at least a good part of it, is generated in this area, with the help of Dawood Ibrahim, who works overtime on behalf of the British and runs his operation through British-controlled Dubai. Drugs come into Dubai by means of Dawood’s “mules,” protected by the ISI-MI6; and in containers which carry equipment sent to Dubai for “repair” from Kandahar and elsewhere in southern Afghanistan. British troops control the southern Helmand province in Afghanistan, where 53% of Afghanistan’s gargantuan 8,200 tons of opium were produced in 2007.
The drugs are converted to cash in Dubai, where Dawood maintains a palatial mansion, similar to the one he maintains in Karachi. Dubai is a tax-free island-city, and a major offshore banking center. The most common reason for opening an offshore bank account nowadays is the flexibility that comes with such an account, and expatriates can particularly benefit from an offshore bank account, as it will likely allow them to manage their international financial commitments with ease.
With the development of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), which is the latest free-trade zone there, flexible and unrestricted offshore banking has become big business. Many of the world’s largest banks already have a significant presence in Dubai—Abbey National Offshore, HSBC Offshore, ABN Amro, ANZ Grindlays, Banque Paribas, Banque de Caire, Barclays, Dresdner, and Merrill Lynch all have offices there. And as drug production continues in Afghanistan, and bankruptcies galore take place worldwide, more banks will surely “find” Dubai.
Drugs and Offshore Banks
Besides Dubai, most of the offshore banks are located in former British colonies. Exceptions include Cyprus, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Dominica, Cape Verde, and the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus. But the vast majority are situated in former British colonies, and all are involved in money laundering: Legitimizing cash, generated from drug-sales and other smuggled goods, for the “respectable banks,” is the watchword of these offshore banks.
Arguably the most important of the Caribbean offshore financial centers is the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory run by a royal governor appointed by Queen Elizabeth II. The Caymans are mainly a mail drop and regulation-free zone, a place where hot money is welcome and few questions are asked.
It is well known in law enforcement circles that the dope trade would quickly choke on its own cash were not a significant portion of the global financial system devoted to money laundering. The offshore centers in the Caribbean were set up to facilitate the Central American drug trade, and have expanded with it.
Overseeing the Caymans financial system are a number of imperial operatives. The royal governor, Stuart Duncan Jack, is a knighted Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority is run by Timothy Ridley, who was made a Knight of the Order of the British Empire. Richard Rahn, a member in the Board of Directors of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, was an economic advisor in the 1980s to President George H.W. Bush; now he heads the European Center for Economic Growth and is a member of the oligarchical Mont Pelerin Society.
In other words, the drugs that Dawood’s mules carry are doing a yeoman’s service for the Anglo-Dutch global financial system, as well as for the terrorists who are killing innocents all over the world. Why make waves about that, New Delhi ponders.
Moreover, Indians know better than most others that where there is opium, there are the British. In Helmand province, British troops rule the roost—or rather, take good care of the City of London’s valuable cash. In India, as Prof. Amitav Ghosh (author of Sea of Poppies) pointed out during his research work, the British Empire, in the late 18th Century, became so dependent on the opium trade, that almost 60% of its revenue was generated from opium sales. Ghosh says if there had been no opium, the British Empire would have died in a minute.
That tradition continues even today. Wherever there is opium, Anglo-Dutch financiers and their American despot friends, like bees seeking honey, set up their houses. Pakistan’s powers-that-be are fully immersed in enjoyment of the drug money, at the expense of being about to lose the western part of Pakistan. But India is no less affected by it; things work differently there.
In India, when the British finally left, partitioning this country, there were about 550-odd princely states. Because of the nature of their set-up, these were completely under the grip of Whitehall and Buckingham Palace. These miserable feudal lords used to spend whatever fortune the British allowed them to have, in British hotels and brothels, vying at the same time for “rewards” from the British monarchy. This despicable class of feudalists in India was downright anti-national, and the worst of the British lackeys, to say the least. In India, the first legislation to curb the cultivation and production of opium was through the Bengal Regulation Act 4 1797 which made cultivation, production, and trade in opium a monopoly of the East India Company in the territories controlled by it. Further, the Company tried to control the trade in opium in the princely states, by creating huge transit barriers: transit tax and customs duties for the opium exported through its territory and ports. Incidentally, all the seaports were held by the East India Company. The next regulations to control opium cultivation, production, and trade were the Opium Acts of 1858 and 1878.
Subsequently, the British created mechanisms for controlling production, processing, vending, and exporting of opium, making huge profits. They began with Patna opium (in Bihar and United Provinces); extended their control over Telengana opium in the princely state of Hyderabad, under the Nizam. But it was much later that they managed to control Malwa opium, produced in today’s states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Capital formation in western India was directly linked to the smuggling of opium to China with the help of Parsee, Marwari, and Gujarat entrepreneurs.
The British also made large profits through taxes on local consumption, because they were the monopoly suppliers. While, for the British, the Dutch, and other colonial powers, opium was a major article of trade, the United States did not get involved in the opium trade, although a number of New England families, some of
them later known as the “Boston Brahmins,” transported opium to China. In the post-colonial period, the United States became heavily involved in the Central American cocaine traffic, and, during the 1980s, with Afghan opium.
The Princely State Connection
Unfortunately, the former princely states’ connection to the drug inflow has not ended, particularly among the states bordering Pakistan, whence almost all Afghan opium comes into India. A number of former princely states, such as the House of Gwalior, continued to remain involved in illegal domestic opium trafficking.
It is opium and heroin, entering from Pakistan, that comes through many of these former princely states, where the old drug-network still survives.
The March 2008 annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board noted increased trafficking and abuse of cannabis and heroin in South Asia. West African traffickers have targeted countries in South Asia, particularly India, for cocaine trafficking.
The report further said: “South American cocaine is trafficked to India in small quantities where it is exchanged for South-West Asian heroin bound for Europe and North America. India is increasingly being used as a major transit country and also as a destination country for drug trafficking. Cross-border smuggling is relatively easy because of the porous borders between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal. Illicit cultivation and abuse of cannabis continue to be a problem in most of the countries in South Asia.” It has also been noted that opium and heroin enter India through Punjab, where at least four former princely states exist, as well as through Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, and Mumbai, among other areas.
The Case of Three Terrorists
This brings us to the events of 1999, and the release of three top terrorists to the Taliban in Kandahar, in order to gain release of 188 hostages. Those three terrorists, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and Maulana Masood Azhar, who were in Indian jails, were personally delivered by the Indian External Affairs Minister and scion of the former princely state of Jodhpur, Jaswant Singh. Jodhpur lies along the Afghan opium drug route into India.
This raises many questions. To begin with, all three were top-drawer terrorists. Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar has renewed the activity of al-Umar Mujahideen in Muzaffarabad, close to the Line of Control, in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir, and is recruiting and training youth to carry out terrorism in the Indian part of Kashmir.
Maulana Masood Azhar hit the headlines again following the Mumbai massacre, when New Delhi demanded that Islamabad hand him over as a “test of sincerity.” Masood Azhar founded the terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, and was identified by Indian investigators as the one who masterminded, along with the Pakistani ISI, the audacious attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. That assault left 14 people dead, including all five terrorists, who India says were also Pakistanis. The incident almost led to war between India and Pakistan.
Ahmed Omar Sheikh Saeed, a British subject, is perhaps the biggest fish in the kettle. He is an MI6 agent who was recruited to serve in Kosovo. Later, he was sent to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, where he kidnapped foreigners and was arrested. Following his release, Sheikh was named as an accomplice of one of the 9/11 terrorists, and later slit the throat of Daniel Pearl, an American journalist investigating the terrorist links. Although London vehemently denies that Sheikh is an MI6 agent, Sheikh’s role in the Subcontinent makes it necessary for MI6 to deny his post-Kosovo affiliation to British intelligence.
This raises another question: Was Sheikh’s release obtained through pressure from London, using a scion of a former princely state? Since so many people have since been killed by these released terrorists, it is worth getting the answer to that question.
Costs of war: No to tribal militias
Although the US strategy of using tribal militias to improve security has been credited with great success in Iraq, expanding it to Afghanistan could be disastrous, Shaun Waterman writes for ISN Security Watch.
By Shaun Waterman in Washington, DC for ISN Security Watch
US Ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood told a 30 December press conference in Kabul about plans for new tribal militias, dubbed the Community Guard program - a move he said was "meant to strengthen local communities and local tribes in their ability to protect what they consider to be their traditional homes."
Traditional local councils known as shuras will recruit volunteers to defend their villages against Taliban insurgents under the plan, Wood said, according to news agencies.
"Once the group has been identified, they will receive training and clothing and other support," he added. The militias would be given communications equipment to call in support from Afghan and US forces in the event of a Taliban attack.
Wood did not answer questions about who would arm the new militias, but emphasized that the US would not do so.
Most Afghan households own firearms and even relatively heavy weapons like rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers are quite common.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier last month that the program would be rolled out first in Wardak province, through which runs the main road between Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar. The road has recently been the focus of insurgent attacks that have threatened to make it impassable.
The Journal, citing US officials, said the militias would be paid by US forces through the local shuras. It also quoted Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as calling the US focus on building a strong central government in Afghanistan "overstated." He said the US would now focus more on "enabling” local communities and their leaders.
"How strong the central government will be in the future, I think, is yet to be determined," he told reporters.
Although Wood was careful to say that the plans had been proposed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, there is little doubt that in reality it is an extension of the US counter-insurgency strategy employed in Iraq; and promoted by military experts like Colonel John Nagl, who developed the US Army's counter-insurgency strategy alongside General David Petraeus, who currently commands US forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Buying off your enemies is [...] a time-honored tactic in counter-insurgency with a proven track record of success," Nagl said last year.
"Over time, you try to incorporate those people into the government security organizations," he added. "I absolutely think that there are tribal organizations in Afghanistan who could be incorporated. … It would be a way to rapidly increase the size of [the Afghan National Police and National Army] with cohesive units."
But even in Iraq, the strategy of forming and paying Sunni tribal militias (called Awakening Councils) to maintain security has been criticized as storing up problems. And there is opposition to extending it to Afghanistan
"The tribal militia idea that has been around for some time now is controversial; we are not onboard with that," Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said in a year-end interview with The Canadian Press. He said the proposal had been debated at a 19 November meeting of countries leading the fight in southern Afghanistan, and there was "no agreement around the table.
"Our preference is to continue with [a] more formal training process that leads to a more reliable, more professional [...] Afghan national security force," MacKay concluded.
And many of those who are more familiar with the reality on the ground in Afghanistan - though perhaps less acquainted with military theory - have grave doubts about the Community Guard program, warning it would risk the fragile gains of the state-building strategy that the international community has been pursuing there.
"At best, it would be a tactical gain, but also an immense strategic loss," said Ali Jalali, a former Afghan interior minister and now a visiting professor at the US National Defense University, noting that by fragmenting power and undermining the authority of the central government, the strategy in the long run could actually worsen the instability it sought to ameliorate.
He called this "effort to gain peace through manipulating tribal dynamics" a "colonial approach."
Levels of corruption and instability were already much too high in the volatile border regions of the country, said retired Marine Colonel Daniel Curfiss, also a professor at the National Defense University.
"My concern is, it would be throwing kindling on this [fire] [...] to pay people who are already unwilling to relinquish power," he said.
"There are precedents, and the precedents are not terribly hopeful," said former US ambassador to Afghanistan James Dobbins, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of a recent study of state-building efforts in the war-ravaged country.
In the period immediately after the ouster of the Taliban government at the end of 2001, Dobbins said, the US and its allies attempted to limit their military commitment by restricting peacekeeping troops to Kabul and using "tribal militias and warlords" to maintain security in the rest of the country.
"Over time it was found that that was not an adequate policy," said Dobbins, with dry understatement.
Jalali said continuing efforts by coalition nations to work directly with tribal and other local leaders had been "one of the problems when I was interior minister" from 2003 to 2005. "They gave them weapons, money and vehicles."
In 2006, he said, the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai tried itself to use tribally based militias - with unhappy results.
Most of the 12,000 members of the militias, formally titled the Afghan National Auxiliary Police, "either deserted with their arms and equipment or were more or less forced to join the insurgents," he said, adding that the force was scheduled to be finally phased out of existence by the end of the current year.
He also pointed out that years of war and insurgency in the tribal areas of Afghanistan had physically decimated the tribal leadership and eroded their influence. "Over the past 30 years, the influence of the traditional leaders has waned," he said, adding that it was warlords and extremists who had replaced them.
Jalali said a strategy of working through local militias was putting the cart before the horse. "The tribes will only stand up [against the extremists] if they see that the government had authority in their areas [...] that is not the case today."
The priority should be building the capacity of the central government, Jalali said. "Capacity-building is the central challenge in Afghanistan today."
Even those who support the proposal are wary about possible unanticipated side-effects.
Vikram Singh, of the think tank Center for a New American Security, was briefed on the plan last year.
"No one is thinking at the strategic level [...] if this is the right answer," he said, adding there was "no analysis by the coalition of how this would play out.
"There's a lot of downside," he concluded.
Indeed. Several of Singh's colleagues at the Center for a New American Security are advising the transition team of President-elect Barack Obama. He should call them and get the idea stymied.
Shaun Waterman is a senior writer and analyst for ISN Security Watch. He is a UK journalist based in Washington, DC, covering homeland and national security for United Press International.
Editor's note:
Shaun Waterman's column, Costs of war, appears every other Tuesday.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author only, not the International Relations and Security Network (ISN).
PM Inaugurates Chief Ministers’ Conference on Internal Security
The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, inaugurated the Chief Ministers’ Conference on Internal Security in New Delhi today. Following is the text of the Prime Minister’s inaugural address on the occasion:
“We last met to discuss internal security issues in December 2007, a little over a year ago. The twelve months that have passed since then have been a difficult period for us. The security situation has, if anything, become even more complex. Many predictions made a year ago have unfortunately turned out to be true. In some cases the scale and magnitude of terrorist attacks appear to have been stepped up exponentially. In the prevailing circumstances we cannot afford to take a partial or segmented view. A holistic approach to our security concerns is definitely called for.
During the past year, we faced a severe challenge from terrorist groups operating from outside our country. Many of them act in association with hostile Intelligence Agencies in these countries. The attempt has been to exploit our vulnerabilities, and at times they do succeed as is evident from the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Our problems are compounded by the fact that we have a highly unpredictable and uncertain security environment in our immediate neighbourhood. The Governments in some of our neighbouring countries are very fragile in nature. The more fragile a Government, the more it tends to act in an irresponsible fashion. Pakistan’s responses to our various demarches on terrorist attacks is an obvious example.
We face multi-dimensional challenges of different kinds, but the most serious threats are those posed by Terrorism, Left Wing Extremism and insurgency in the North East. Left Wing Extremism is primarily indigenous and home-grown. Terrorism, on the other hand, is largely sponsored from outside our country, mainly Pakistan, which has utilized terrorism as an instrument of State policy. Insurgency in the North-East exploits disparities in income and wealth but it is also sustained by the sanctuaries provided to the leaders of insurgency movements in the neighbouring countries. There are, hence, fundamental differences in the way we need to view the internal security challenge and deal with the three threats that I had mentioned.
In the previous meeting it had been mentioned that terrorists were enlarging the canvas of threats. Increasingly, their concentration was on attacking economic, infrastructure, and iconic targets, apart from political, military and security ones. Mention had also been made of the fact that the sea route was now being exploited and explored as an alternative to land routes. It had, therefore, been suggested that there should be greater vigilance along our coast line and better monitoring of maritime activity in our territorial waters. The terrorists who carried out the attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008 used the sea route, and managed to evade our coastal surveillance.
Calculating and responding to security challenges of this nature is in itself a complex exercise at the best of times. It becomes even more challenging in the circumstances I have just now mentioned. Our security calculus is a matrix of many imponderable factors, but there are two fundamental and underlying aspects, i.e., protecting the territorial integrity of the country and ensuring our internal security.
A strong sense of nationhood is important to withstand both these types of threats. Our nation is clearly united in our determination to defeat both external as well as internal security challenges. Our determination and sense of nationhood derives from our inheritance of a great historical experience of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-caste and multi-lingual society. To-day, even as Pakistan engages in whipping up war hysteria, our nation remains steadfastly united and, if anything, the process of national consolidation is becoming stronger.
Dealing with internal security problems does not alter this dynamic. The situation may appear challenging and it is challenging but it is by no means beyond control. Concerns may exist that our defence mechanisms to thwart the numerous threats are inadequate. There may be criticism that the range of the instruments that we possess to deal with internal security threats, are not sufficiently sophisticated. Clearly, there is need to review the effectiveness of our set up for the collection of technical signalling and human intelligence. The training and equipment provided to our security forces also requires a careful review. I will admit that a great deal more can, and needs to, be done. Both the Centre and the State Governments must attend to this national task with speed, efficiency and utmost commitment.
Our external policies have been dictated by a desire to have a supportive neighbourhood. Unfortunately, we cannot choose our neighbours, and some countries like Pakistan have in the past encouraged and given sanctuary to terrorists and other forces who are antagonistic to India. We have tried to minimize the impact of such hostility by erecting certain defences. We have fenced our border along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, from where the vast majority of the infiltrations into India tended to take place. We are currently fencing our border with Bangladesh, from where also a number of infiltrations have been reported.
Consequent upon this, those in charge of the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan have resorted to other stratagems to infiltrate terrorists into India. Infiltration is occurring via Nepal and from Bangladesh, though it has not totally ceased via the Line of Control in J&K. We are aware that the sea route is another option that is now being exercised. A few interceptions have taken place, though we failed to intercept the 10 Pakistani terrorists who came by sea from Karachi on November 26.
The terrorist attack in Mumbai in November last year was clearly carried out by a Pakistan-based outfit, the Lashkar-e-Taiba. On the basis of the investigations carried out, including the Agencies of some foreign countries whose nationals were killed in the attack, there is enough evidence to show that, given the sophistication and military precision of the attack it must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan.
We are aware of the existence of different concentric circles of terrorism which impact on our security. The Mumbai terrorist attack fell into the category of one carried out exclusively by a foreign based outfit. There are other concentric circles of terrorism that often involve a combination of external forces backed by internal elements. There are still others which are essentially indigenous in character.
Recent patterns of terrorist incidents also suggest that increasingly the attacks have a pan-Indian and trans-national aspect. The terrorists are able to fashion new techniques and employ new skills. There is growing emphasis on ‘mass casualty attacks’. Terrorist communications have become state-of-the-art. Use of the Internet and Voice Over Internet Protocol connectivity, gives the terrorists greater anonymity and makes detection difficult for the authorities.
Attacks today are again less random than previously. In the case of Mumbai, a definite link can be discerned between our economic and security interests. Targetting of foreigners, specially from the West, was obviously intended to convey an impression that India was unsafe as a destination for the West and Western investments. We need to effectively counter this impression. We need to ensure that another major terrorist attack does not take place on our soil. We must implement the policy of ‘Zero Tolerance of Terrorism’ with total commitment.
Few countries have suffered so frequently or faced so much violence at the hands of terrorists as our country. During the past year, there have been terrorist attacks in Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Assam, Mumbai and some places in U.P. and these show higher levels of sophistication with each attack.
What makes terrorism particularly threatening at this moment is the impression of vulnerability combined with the display of greater sophistication in techniques and methodologies of terrorist outfits. The challenges before us are to demonstrate that we have both the capability as well as the sophisticated instrumentalities to anticipate and overcome the shifts and changes in terrorist methods. We cannot, therefore, afford to conceptualize narrowly. We must not react merely to immediate events.
This is the underlying message contained in the Home Minister’s letter inviting you to this Meeting. It is important at this juncture to demonstrate our combined will, and that we are effectively galvanizing the internal security system to deal with future terrorist attacks. Technology is empowering non-state actors across the globe and it is necessary for us to come up with a comprehensive strategy that combines the best of technological and human capabilities within the country to defeat terrorism in all its manifestations.
The Home Minister has already outlined a number of steps that have been taken in recent weeks to erect additional mechanisms to counter future terrorist attacks. The main message is that we need to break down barriers to information-sharing between the various agencies.
What I would add is that we need better intelligence and perhaps, more importantly, sophistcated assessment and analysis of the intelligence that is available. Complaints are often heard that the intelligence provided by the Agencies is not actionable. All intelligence produced is actionable, though it may not always be specific. It depends on the capability and ingenuity of those who assess the information to further develop and convert the fragmentary pieces of intelligence into a complete whole and for those who have to act on it to possibly pursue each and every lead.
Getting information early in time is vitally important and we need to encourage the setting up of an elaborate information system at the village, block and district level to report on any and all untoward events and incidents. Mobile telephones today provide opportunities for easy communication. Even our fishermen out at sea can use mobile telephones to report any untoward incident in our territorial waters. We must understand that no counter-terrorist action can hope to succeed unless it is based on the cooperation of the community and hence the importance of an expanded community policing system in our country. I would request the Chief Ministers to personally attend to this vital task.
The information available from diverse sources, thereafter needs to be properly channelized to reach a common point such as the recently revitalized Multi-Agency Centre in Delhi for collation and analysis. It will, hence, be necessary to establish Centers locally, at the State and lower levels across the country, to collate all the available information which might have a bearing on a potential terrorist situation. Other countries which have a federal structure similar to ours, like the United States, do have such centers spread across the country to coordinate local level responses to terrorism.
A large empirical data base will not yield results without using techniques such as structured analytic methodologies to convert the mass of information into actionable intelligence. Applications such as Threat Assessment Modeling and Artificial Neural Networks will have to be added to the existing analytic techniques. Three Dimensional Modeling of Critical Infrastructure is a new aspect that needs to be introduced. In several situations, we could even think of a Virtual Operations Centre.
I recently had occasion to mention in Parliament that the time had come for us to establish a permanent Crisis Management Group to handle the fall-out of major terrorist attacks anywhere in our country. This is now being established. We have also begun the process of strengthening maritime security against asymmetric threats from the sea. We have coordinated measures to plug loopholes in regard to our air space. The process of augmenting and strengthening our counter-terrorist forces has also begun.
What we hope to achieve is closer scrutiny and attention as well as a more rapid response to new and emerging threats. Our aim is to achieve the concept of total security.
Additionally, I would here also like to refer to the danger from Left Wing Extremism. Naxalite groups do pose a challenge, though of a different nature. Left Wing Extremism has been in vogue for four decades now, but the danger is that over time the nature of the movement has substantially altered. From an ideologically driven movement it has been transformed into one in which the military ethos has become predominant. The CPI-Maoist is perhaps the only militant organization in the country which has its own Guerrilla Army, though, as yet, this is of modest proportions. It is perhaps the only militant body to-day which has a rigid organizational structure. They also have some rudimentary capabilities to manufacture arms. They show increasing sophistication in the way they carry out attacks. They also do not seem to have any dearth of new recruits to the movement.
Quite a few States in the country are affected by Left Wing Extremism, notably Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. As the movement spreads, and becomes more energized and active, we must ponder deeply on how best to effectively deal with it. This is so, as the movement still retains a modicum of ideological appeal. It is still able to garner support from among members of Civil Society and Civil Liberties organizations. It still attracts sections of the youth. Choosing the right methods and adopting a proper strategy are therefore important so that the action we take does not give a greater fillip to the growth of the movement.
Finally, I would like to say that Terrorism should not be conceptualized solely in military terms. While taking all the measures necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, we must simultaneously ensure that the concept of terrorism is delegitimized through better investigation and superior intelligence. We must convince the world community that States that use terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy, must be isolated and compelled to abandon such tactics. We must engage vigorously in debates to press the point that ‘soft’ support for terrorism cannot any longer be endorsed. We must demonstrate that an alert pluralistic and secular society such as ours is the best defence against terrorist onslaughts. Terrorism, Naxalism and Insurgency in the North-East, Hon’ble Chief Ministers, constitute major challenges for our national security establishment. We need to mobilize all our wisdom, knowledge and experience to meet these challenges head on. I am confident that our nation has the resilience and will power to emerge victorious in this fight. I wish you all success in your deliberations.”
“We last met to discuss internal security issues in December 2007, a little over a year ago. The twelve months that have passed since then have been a difficult period for us. The security situation has, if anything, become even more complex. Many predictions made a year ago have unfortunately turned out to be true. In some cases the scale and magnitude of terrorist attacks appear to have been stepped up exponentially. In the prevailing circumstances we cannot afford to take a partial or segmented view. A holistic approach to our security concerns is definitely called for.
During the past year, we faced a severe challenge from terrorist groups operating from outside our country. Many of them act in association with hostile Intelligence Agencies in these countries. The attempt has been to exploit our vulnerabilities, and at times they do succeed as is evident from the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Our problems are compounded by the fact that we have a highly unpredictable and uncertain security environment in our immediate neighbourhood. The Governments in some of our neighbouring countries are very fragile in nature. The more fragile a Government, the more it tends to act in an irresponsible fashion. Pakistan’s responses to our various demarches on terrorist attacks is an obvious example.
We face multi-dimensional challenges of different kinds, but the most serious threats are those posed by Terrorism, Left Wing Extremism and insurgency in the North East. Left Wing Extremism is primarily indigenous and home-grown. Terrorism, on the other hand, is largely sponsored from outside our country, mainly Pakistan, which has utilized terrorism as an instrument of State policy. Insurgency in the North-East exploits disparities in income and wealth but it is also sustained by the sanctuaries provided to the leaders of insurgency movements in the neighbouring countries. There are, hence, fundamental differences in the way we need to view the internal security challenge and deal with the three threats that I had mentioned.
In the previous meeting it had been mentioned that terrorists were enlarging the canvas of threats. Increasingly, their concentration was on attacking economic, infrastructure, and iconic targets, apart from political, military and security ones. Mention had also been made of the fact that the sea route was now being exploited and explored as an alternative to land routes. It had, therefore, been suggested that there should be greater vigilance along our coast line and better monitoring of maritime activity in our territorial waters. The terrorists who carried out the attack on Mumbai on November 26, 2008 used the sea route, and managed to evade our coastal surveillance.
Calculating and responding to security challenges of this nature is in itself a complex exercise at the best of times. It becomes even more challenging in the circumstances I have just now mentioned. Our security calculus is a matrix of many imponderable factors, but there are two fundamental and underlying aspects, i.e., protecting the territorial integrity of the country and ensuring our internal security.
A strong sense of nationhood is important to withstand both these types of threats. Our nation is clearly united in our determination to defeat both external as well as internal security challenges. Our determination and sense of nationhood derives from our inheritance of a great historical experience of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-caste and multi-lingual society. To-day, even as Pakistan engages in whipping up war hysteria, our nation remains steadfastly united and, if anything, the process of national consolidation is becoming stronger.
Dealing with internal security problems does not alter this dynamic. The situation may appear challenging and it is challenging but it is by no means beyond control. Concerns may exist that our defence mechanisms to thwart the numerous threats are inadequate. There may be criticism that the range of the instruments that we possess to deal with internal security threats, are not sufficiently sophisticated. Clearly, there is need to review the effectiveness of our set up for the collection of technical signalling and human intelligence. The training and equipment provided to our security forces also requires a careful review. I will admit that a great deal more can, and needs to, be done. Both the Centre and the State Governments must attend to this national task with speed, efficiency and utmost commitment.
Our external policies have been dictated by a desire to have a supportive neighbourhood. Unfortunately, we cannot choose our neighbours, and some countries like Pakistan have in the past encouraged and given sanctuary to terrorists and other forces who are antagonistic to India. We have tried to minimize the impact of such hostility by erecting certain defences. We have fenced our border along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, from where the vast majority of the infiltrations into India tended to take place. We are currently fencing our border with Bangladesh, from where also a number of infiltrations have been reported.
Consequent upon this, those in charge of the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan have resorted to other stratagems to infiltrate terrorists into India. Infiltration is occurring via Nepal and from Bangladesh, though it has not totally ceased via the Line of Control in J&K. We are aware that the sea route is another option that is now being exercised. A few interceptions have taken place, though we failed to intercept the 10 Pakistani terrorists who came by sea from Karachi on November 26.
The terrorist attack in Mumbai in November last year was clearly carried out by a Pakistan-based outfit, the Lashkar-e-Taiba. On the basis of the investigations carried out, including the Agencies of some foreign countries whose nationals were killed in the attack, there is enough evidence to show that, given the sophistication and military precision of the attack it must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan.
We are aware of the existence of different concentric circles of terrorism which impact on our security. The Mumbai terrorist attack fell into the category of one carried out exclusively by a foreign based outfit. There are other concentric circles of terrorism that often involve a combination of external forces backed by internal elements. There are still others which are essentially indigenous in character.
Recent patterns of terrorist incidents also suggest that increasingly the attacks have a pan-Indian and trans-national aspect. The terrorists are able to fashion new techniques and employ new skills. There is growing emphasis on ‘mass casualty attacks’. Terrorist communications have become state-of-the-art. Use of the Internet and Voice Over Internet Protocol connectivity, gives the terrorists greater anonymity and makes detection difficult for the authorities.
Attacks today are again less random than previously. In the case of Mumbai, a definite link can be discerned between our economic and security interests. Targetting of foreigners, specially from the West, was obviously intended to convey an impression that India was unsafe as a destination for the West and Western investments. We need to effectively counter this impression. We need to ensure that another major terrorist attack does not take place on our soil. We must implement the policy of ‘Zero Tolerance of Terrorism’ with total commitment.
Few countries have suffered so frequently or faced so much violence at the hands of terrorists as our country. During the past year, there have been terrorist attacks in Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Assam, Mumbai and some places in U.P. and these show higher levels of sophistication with each attack.
What makes terrorism particularly threatening at this moment is the impression of vulnerability combined with the display of greater sophistication in techniques and methodologies of terrorist outfits. The challenges before us are to demonstrate that we have both the capability as well as the sophisticated instrumentalities to anticipate and overcome the shifts and changes in terrorist methods. We cannot, therefore, afford to conceptualize narrowly. We must not react merely to immediate events.
This is the underlying message contained in the Home Minister’s letter inviting you to this Meeting. It is important at this juncture to demonstrate our combined will, and that we are effectively galvanizing the internal security system to deal with future terrorist attacks. Technology is empowering non-state actors across the globe and it is necessary for us to come up with a comprehensive strategy that combines the best of technological and human capabilities within the country to defeat terrorism in all its manifestations.
The Home Minister has already outlined a number of steps that have been taken in recent weeks to erect additional mechanisms to counter future terrorist attacks. The main message is that we need to break down barriers to information-sharing between the various agencies.
What I would add is that we need better intelligence and perhaps, more importantly, sophistcated assessment and analysis of the intelligence that is available. Complaints are often heard that the intelligence provided by the Agencies is not actionable. All intelligence produced is actionable, though it may not always be specific. It depends on the capability and ingenuity of those who assess the information to further develop and convert the fragmentary pieces of intelligence into a complete whole and for those who have to act on it to possibly pursue each and every lead.
Getting information early in time is vitally important and we need to encourage the setting up of an elaborate information system at the village, block and district level to report on any and all untoward events and incidents. Mobile telephones today provide opportunities for easy communication. Even our fishermen out at sea can use mobile telephones to report any untoward incident in our territorial waters. We must understand that no counter-terrorist action can hope to succeed unless it is based on the cooperation of the community and hence the importance of an expanded community policing system in our country. I would request the Chief Ministers to personally attend to this vital task.
The information available from diverse sources, thereafter needs to be properly channelized to reach a common point such as the recently revitalized Multi-Agency Centre in Delhi for collation and analysis. It will, hence, be necessary to establish Centers locally, at the State and lower levels across the country, to collate all the available information which might have a bearing on a potential terrorist situation. Other countries which have a federal structure similar to ours, like the United States, do have such centers spread across the country to coordinate local level responses to terrorism.
A large empirical data base will not yield results without using techniques such as structured analytic methodologies to convert the mass of information into actionable intelligence. Applications such as Threat Assessment Modeling and Artificial Neural Networks will have to be added to the existing analytic techniques. Three Dimensional Modeling of Critical Infrastructure is a new aspect that needs to be introduced. In several situations, we could even think of a Virtual Operations Centre.
I recently had occasion to mention in Parliament that the time had come for us to establish a permanent Crisis Management Group to handle the fall-out of major terrorist attacks anywhere in our country. This is now being established. We have also begun the process of strengthening maritime security against asymmetric threats from the sea. We have coordinated measures to plug loopholes in regard to our air space. The process of augmenting and strengthening our counter-terrorist forces has also begun.
What we hope to achieve is closer scrutiny and attention as well as a more rapid response to new and emerging threats. Our aim is to achieve the concept of total security.
Additionally, I would here also like to refer to the danger from Left Wing Extremism. Naxalite groups do pose a challenge, though of a different nature. Left Wing Extremism has been in vogue for four decades now, but the danger is that over time the nature of the movement has substantially altered. From an ideologically driven movement it has been transformed into one in which the military ethos has become predominant. The CPI-Maoist is perhaps the only militant organization in the country which has its own Guerrilla Army, though, as yet, this is of modest proportions. It is perhaps the only militant body to-day which has a rigid organizational structure. They also have some rudimentary capabilities to manufacture arms. They show increasing sophistication in the way they carry out attacks. They also do not seem to have any dearth of new recruits to the movement.
Quite a few States in the country are affected by Left Wing Extremism, notably Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. As the movement spreads, and becomes more energized and active, we must ponder deeply on how best to effectively deal with it. This is so, as the movement still retains a modicum of ideological appeal. It is still able to garner support from among members of Civil Society and Civil Liberties organizations. It still attracts sections of the youth. Choosing the right methods and adopting a proper strategy are therefore important so that the action we take does not give a greater fillip to the growth of the movement.
Finally, I would like to say that Terrorism should not be conceptualized solely in military terms. While taking all the measures necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, we must simultaneously ensure that the concept of terrorism is delegitimized through better investigation and superior intelligence. We must convince the world community that States that use terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy, must be isolated and compelled to abandon such tactics. We must engage vigorously in debates to press the point that ‘soft’ support for terrorism cannot any longer be endorsed. We must demonstrate that an alert pluralistic and secular society such as ours is the best defence against terrorist onslaughts. Terrorism, Naxalism and Insurgency in the North-East, Hon’ble Chief Ministers, constitute major challenges for our national security establishment. We need to mobilize all our wisdom, knowledge and experience to meet these challenges head on. I am confident that our nation has the resilience and will power to emerge victorious in this fight. I wish you all success in your deliberations.”
The world’s most famous seer
11:47 | 02/ 01/ 2009
MOSCOW. (Anatoly Korolev for RIA Novosti) - In the 505 years since his birth, Nostradamus (December 14, 1503 - July 1, 1566), born Michel de Nostredame, has become one of the most vivid personalities in human history.
If we completely believe his prophecies, we will have to admit that the actual laws of the Universe are different from those accepted by modern science. According to Einstein, time and space are bound together and form a common gravity field, with the future just a point of origin on the coordinate axis, where the present happens simultaneously with the "clock striking on the hour."
According to Nostradamus, our future exists somewhere beyond time; it has almost happened already and is vaguely visible in the distance, first as if through a veil of fog, and then becomes increasingly more clear. Finally, the fog lifts, and with every strike of the clock, the future comes to meet us as our present.
That means that a prophet can see the future by the will of God and tell it to the common people. At a royal audience at the Louvre Palace on September 30, 1555, Nostradamus told King Henry II and his wife Catherine de Medici that in foretelling the future, he was just a string of a great violin, played by God. And the violin player uses him to convey information. Why was he chosen? He doesn't know. He is just an ordinary sinner.
Nostradamus' predictions stretch over a period of several thousands of years, from 1555 to 3797. The last part of the Centuries, covering the period from 2300 to 3797, is missing.
What will happen in 2125 according to this book? The last ever Christian and Judaic services will be performed, with religions taking different forms that don't include rituals or ceremonies from then on.
By a twist of fate, the greatest number of Nostradamus' prophecies are related to the 20th century and include the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the murder of the Russian royal family, the rise to power of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, political terror and Holocaust, Nazi Germany and its defeat in World War II, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and other events.
Here is an excerpt on the disintegration of the USSR: "The new Babylon, augmented by the abomination of the first Holocaust, will last no less than 73 years and 7 months."
If we consider the start of the Soviet era as the dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks on January 19, 1918, and its end as the 1991 coup, it makes exactly 73 years and 7 months.
His uncanny accuracy is what has made Nostradamus an iconic figure in the 20th century.
He was born into a Jewish family which had converted to Catholicism in St. Rémy, Provence, in southern France. His ancestors were merchants and doctors, and a similar fate was awaiting him. Before getting his doctorate at the Montpellier University, he went under the name of de Nostredame, which means "Holy Mother." Becoming a Doctor gave him the right to assume the Latin version of the name, Nostradamus.
Not much of his biography has survived intact to this day. We know the most about the last period of his life, which was recorded by his disciple and first biographer Jacques Chauvigny. The most important events were Nostradamus' struggle against the plague, the release of his first book of the Centuries, and the sensational prediction of King Henry II's death at a duel in the summer of 1559.
Nostradamus made his first prediction while attending a Catholic school in Avignon. Having seen two young pigs at the barn-yard, a black and a white one, he said the white pig would be killed by a wolf, and the black one served for dinner.
After the rector found out about the prediction, he ordered to have the black pig slaughtered and buried, and to serve the white pig for dinner immediately. The cook rushed to fulfill the order, but was told at the barn-yard that the white pig had been snatched by a wolf, who had entered the barn through the roof, and only the black pig was left. Unsure of what to do, the cook served the black pig for dinner.
But the Medieval world was a small place. Rumors spread quickly and the cook had to confess the truth.
After graduating from Avignon University and getting a Master's degree, Michel moved to Aachen, where was happily married to Agene, and had two children with her. But the plague epidemic swept through the area in 1537, taking the lives of his wife and children.
It was then that Nostradamus had his first revelation.
He spent the next ten years struggling with the plague, saving hundreds of lives from the deadly disease. His formula was simple: fresh air, clean water and lemon juice mixed with water, which contains Vitamin C. For his medical merits, the Provence Parliament granted Nostradamus a lifetime pension in 1546 and he remained financially independent until the end of his life.
Nostradamus left the site of his family's death and moved to Salon. There he married another woman and had six children with her. Soon he released the first almanac of his Centuries, consisting of 24 quatrains, or poetic puzzles which featured the future of Europe.
The book was a great success. The 1555 issue was completely sold out. One year later, Nostradamus published another section of the Centuries in four parts, each comprising 100 quatrains, or a total of 400 prophecies. He did this every year until the end of his life.
He had been considered the town's lunatic for a long time, until one of his predictions came true in a most striking way.
Here it is: "The young Lion will overcome the old one, in martial field by a single duel. In a golden cage he shall put out his eye."
On July 9, 1559, a solemn spear duel was held in Paris to mark the wedding of the Spanish King to the French King Henry II's daughter. The French King, wearing a gold-plated headgear with the vizor down, took on the young Scottish count Gabriel Montgomery. The count's lance broke against the King's armor and a fragment penetrated the vizor, taking out Henry II's eye and reaching the brain.
The news of the cruel death resounded throughout France.
The Queen was furious and swore to wear mourning for her husband all her life, a promise she kept.
Nostradamus prepared for the worst. But Catherine de Medici spared him. In fact, his fate was reminiscent of Joseph, who was brought to the Egyptian Pharaoh to decipher the meaning of a strange dream. Nostradamus was put in charge of the Queen's children. He soon predicted the new king's death, the enthronement of Catherine's third son, her favorite, the massacre of St. Bartholomew and his own death.
According to Jacques Chauvigny, his biographer, one day he wished good night to Nostradamus as usual, but the great seer replied: "You will not find me alive at sunrise." And that was just what happened.
In the morning of July 1, 1566, Nostradamus lay breathless on the floor in his study. He was 63.
In his testament, the seer wished to be buried in a standing position, adding, however, that some day his bones would be scattered. The prediction came true during the French Revolution, when sans-culottes opened up his grave and scattered his bones to retaliate for his prophesy of the 1792 bloodshed. As soon as the fact was reported to Robespierre, he ordered that the violators be executed immediately and Nostradamus' remains reburied. He had a monument installed on his grave with an inscription that read, To the Prophet of Liberty.
Writer Anatoly Korolev is a member of the Russian PEN Club.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
MOSCOW. (Anatoly Korolev for RIA Novosti) - In the 505 years since his birth, Nostradamus (December 14, 1503 - July 1, 1566), born Michel de Nostredame, has become one of the most vivid personalities in human history.
If we completely believe his prophecies, we will have to admit that the actual laws of the Universe are different from those accepted by modern science. According to Einstein, time and space are bound together and form a common gravity field, with the future just a point of origin on the coordinate axis, where the present happens simultaneously with the "clock striking on the hour."
According to Nostradamus, our future exists somewhere beyond time; it has almost happened already and is vaguely visible in the distance, first as if through a veil of fog, and then becomes increasingly more clear. Finally, the fog lifts, and with every strike of the clock, the future comes to meet us as our present.
That means that a prophet can see the future by the will of God and tell it to the common people. At a royal audience at the Louvre Palace on September 30, 1555, Nostradamus told King Henry II and his wife Catherine de Medici that in foretelling the future, he was just a string of a great violin, played by God. And the violin player uses him to convey information. Why was he chosen? He doesn't know. He is just an ordinary sinner.
Nostradamus' predictions stretch over a period of several thousands of years, from 1555 to 3797. The last part of the Centuries, covering the period from 2300 to 3797, is missing.
What will happen in 2125 according to this book? The last ever Christian and Judaic services will be performed, with religions taking different forms that don't include rituals or ceremonies from then on.
By a twist of fate, the greatest number of Nostradamus' prophecies are related to the 20th century and include the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the murder of the Russian royal family, the rise to power of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, political terror and Holocaust, Nazi Germany and its defeat in World War II, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and other events.
Here is an excerpt on the disintegration of the USSR: "The new Babylon, augmented by the abomination of the first Holocaust, will last no less than 73 years and 7 months."
If we consider the start of the Soviet era as the dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviks on January 19, 1918, and its end as the 1991 coup, it makes exactly 73 years and 7 months.
His uncanny accuracy is what has made Nostradamus an iconic figure in the 20th century.
He was born into a Jewish family which had converted to Catholicism in St. Rémy, Provence, in southern France. His ancestors were merchants and doctors, and a similar fate was awaiting him. Before getting his doctorate at the Montpellier University, he went under the name of de Nostredame, which means "Holy Mother." Becoming a Doctor gave him the right to assume the Latin version of the name, Nostradamus.
Not much of his biography has survived intact to this day. We know the most about the last period of his life, which was recorded by his disciple and first biographer Jacques Chauvigny. The most important events were Nostradamus' struggle against the plague, the release of his first book of the Centuries, and the sensational prediction of King Henry II's death at a duel in the summer of 1559.
Nostradamus made his first prediction while attending a Catholic school in Avignon. Having seen two young pigs at the barn-yard, a black and a white one, he said the white pig would be killed by a wolf, and the black one served for dinner.
After the rector found out about the prediction, he ordered to have the black pig slaughtered and buried, and to serve the white pig for dinner immediately. The cook rushed to fulfill the order, but was told at the barn-yard that the white pig had been snatched by a wolf, who had entered the barn through the roof, and only the black pig was left. Unsure of what to do, the cook served the black pig for dinner.
But the Medieval world was a small place. Rumors spread quickly and the cook had to confess the truth.
After graduating from Avignon University and getting a Master's degree, Michel moved to Aachen, where was happily married to Agene, and had two children with her. But the plague epidemic swept through the area in 1537, taking the lives of his wife and children.
It was then that Nostradamus had his first revelation.
He spent the next ten years struggling with the plague, saving hundreds of lives from the deadly disease. His formula was simple: fresh air, clean water and lemon juice mixed with water, which contains Vitamin C. For his medical merits, the Provence Parliament granted Nostradamus a lifetime pension in 1546 and he remained financially independent until the end of his life.
Nostradamus left the site of his family's death and moved to Salon. There he married another woman and had six children with her. Soon he released the first almanac of his Centuries, consisting of 24 quatrains, or poetic puzzles which featured the future of Europe.
The book was a great success. The 1555 issue was completely sold out. One year later, Nostradamus published another section of the Centuries in four parts, each comprising 100 quatrains, or a total of 400 prophecies. He did this every year until the end of his life.
He had been considered the town's lunatic for a long time, until one of his predictions came true in a most striking way.
Here it is: "The young Lion will overcome the old one, in martial field by a single duel. In a golden cage he shall put out his eye."
On July 9, 1559, a solemn spear duel was held in Paris to mark the wedding of the Spanish King to the French King Henry II's daughter. The French King, wearing a gold-plated headgear with the vizor down, took on the young Scottish count Gabriel Montgomery. The count's lance broke against the King's armor and a fragment penetrated the vizor, taking out Henry II's eye and reaching the brain.
The news of the cruel death resounded throughout France.
The Queen was furious and swore to wear mourning for her husband all her life, a promise she kept.
Nostradamus prepared for the worst. But Catherine de Medici spared him. In fact, his fate was reminiscent of Joseph, who was brought to the Egyptian Pharaoh to decipher the meaning of a strange dream. Nostradamus was put in charge of the Queen's children. He soon predicted the new king's death, the enthronement of Catherine's third son, her favorite, the massacre of St. Bartholomew and his own death.
According to Jacques Chauvigny, his biographer, one day he wished good night to Nostradamus as usual, but the great seer replied: "You will not find me alive at sunrise." And that was just what happened.
In the morning of July 1, 1566, Nostradamus lay breathless on the floor in his study. He was 63.
In his testament, the seer wished to be buried in a standing position, adding, however, that some day his bones would be scattered. The prediction came true during the French Revolution, when sans-culottes opened up his grave and scattered his bones to retaliate for his prophesy of the 1792 bloodshed. As soon as the fact was reported to Robespierre, he ordered that the violators be executed immediately and Nostradamus' remains reburied. He had a monument installed on his grave with an inscription that read, To the Prophet of Liberty.
Writer Anatoly Korolev is a member of the Russian PEN Club.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
China's mounting pink slips
International Herald Tribune
By Christina Larson Published: January 4, 2009
Set aside Yao Ming and the furry mascots. The buoyant spirit of the 2008 Beijing Olympics already seems like a lifetime ago. A new icon has recently emerged for today's China: the disgruntled, laid-off factory worker, standing dejected outside a shuttered factory, another victim of the global economic downtown.
As startling as these factory closures have been, the fate of another less-heralded figure may be more significant: the laid-off office worker.
After 30 years of nearly continuous, even momentous, economic growth - which has lifted millions out of poverty and bolstered the ruling Chinese Communist Party - the economy's manufacturing base is slipping. Last month, exports dipped for the first time in seven years.
Mounting factory layoffs this year - around 2 million have been sent packing near the factory city of Dongguan alone - have prompted a string of noisy but isolated protests across the country's southern industrial region. The anxious Chinese government has rushed in with bailout money for companies and some compensation for workers. So far, a thousand sparks haven't become a wildfire. Fretful Chinese workers have yet to channel discontent into unified campaigns, or demands for representation in the political sphere. But whether Beijing can so easily mollify the growing apprehension among the country's middle class could be another story entirely.
That workers haven't linked arms factory to factory and city to city may seem anti-climactic. Then again, consider the realities of China's internal politics. Most linemen were farmers five years ago. They are recent migrants to the cities, on the bottom rung of status and expectations. The combination of fragmented social networks, poor education, and gray legal status (most are "unregistered" urban residents) gives them limited power to organize.
Today in Opinion
Obama's Afghan challenge: Build a new allianceRestoring the U.S. Army to full forceExit, stonewallingMany have learned to tolerate poor labor conditions, minimal rights, and dubious payroll practices. They are now reacting, loudly, when shunted aside, but what they're demanding is that employers fork over back pay - not any kind of systematic change.
But China's middle class (now some 100 million to 150 million strong) is a different animal. The country's economic and political fabric will face an unheralded challenge if large numbers of pink slips go to white-collar workers in 2009 - the kind of people who have grown accustomed to having more choices and a higher standard of living.
In recent years, they haven't had many complaints. But when roused, they can potentially punch back. Perhaps the most striking example of citizens exerting direct pressure on national policy came in 2004, when a network of middle-class Chinese environmental activists and lawyers, pointing to Beijing's own "environmental impact assessment law," convinced the government to halt planned dams on China's last wild waterway, the Nu River.
The last time China's middle class really got agitated, of course, was on the heels of another financial crisis. That was in 1989, following a year of spiraling inflation, price shocks, and cash-flow woes. One telling, if unsexy, demand of the university students protesting at Tiananmen was to hold accountable those who caused inflation.
Much has changed in two decades. China's financial managers are far more sophisticated. There are new unemployment and Social Security schemes that, in theory, offer more safety nets to soften the blow for laid-off urban workers. But as Pieter Bottelier of the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies in Washington points out, those systems, created within the last few years, are still in their nascent stages.
At the same time, there is, on paper, a broader array of options for disgruntled people to blow off steam. In recent years, Beijing has passed regulations that purport to give citizens limited avenues for policy feedback - including posting draft versions of certain "laws closely related to the interests of the people" on government Web sites for public comment. Such channels have so far remained basically dormant (and may well have been created quite cynically), but a prolonged financial slump could raise their profile.
Whether China's middle class will ultimately focus on discreet issues (more unemployment benefits) or broader concerns (more freedom for the media to detail white-collar problems) remains unknown. But the deeper the financial hole, the less likely political complacency.
Christina Larson, a contributing editor at Washington Monthly, reported from China this summer and fall.
By Christina Larson Published: January 4, 2009
Set aside Yao Ming and the furry mascots. The buoyant spirit of the 2008 Beijing Olympics already seems like a lifetime ago. A new icon has recently emerged for today's China: the disgruntled, laid-off factory worker, standing dejected outside a shuttered factory, another victim of the global economic downtown.
As startling as these factory closures have been, the fate of another less-heralded figure may be more significant: the laid-off office worker.
After 30 years of nearly continuous, even momentous, economic growth - which has lifted millions out of poverty and bolstered the ruling Chinese Communist Party - the economy's manufacturing base is slipping. Last month, exports dipped for the first time in seven years.
Mounting factory layoffs this year - around 2 million have been sent packing near the factory city of Dongguan alone - have prompted a string of noisy but isolated protests across the country's southern industrial region. The anxious Chinese government has rushed in with bailout money for companies and some compensation for workers. So far, a thousand sparks haven't become a wildfire. Fretful Chinese workers have yet to channel discontent into unified campaigns, or demands for representation in the political sphere. But whether Beijing can so easily mollify the growing apprehension among the country's middle class could be another story entirely.
That workers haven't linked arms factory to factory and city to city may seem anti-climactic. Then again, consider the realities of China's internal politics. Most linemen were farmers five years ago. They are recent migrants to the cities, on the bottom rung of status and expectations. The combination of fragmented social networks, poor education, and gray legal status (most are "unregistered" urban residents) gives them limited power to organize.
Today in Opinion
Obama's Afghan challenge: Build a new allianceRestoring the U.S. Army to full forceExit, stonewallingMany have learned to tolerate poor labor conditions, minimal rights, and dubious payroll practices. They are now reacting, loudly, when shunted aside, but what they're demanding is that employers fork over back pay - not any kind of systematic change.
But China's middle class (now some 100 million to 150 million strong) is a different animal. The country's economic and political fabric will face an unheralded challenge if large numbers of pink slips go to white-collar workers in 2009 - the kind of people who have grown accustomed to having more choices and a higher standard of living.
In recent years, they haven't had many complaints. But when roused, they can potentially punch back. Perhaps the most striking example of citizens exerting direct pressure on national policy came in 2004, when a network of middle-class Chinese environmental activists and lawyers, pointing to Beijing's own "environmental impact assessment law," convinced the government to halt planned dams on China's last wild waterway, the Nu River.
The last time China's middle class really got agitated, of course, was on the heels of another financial crisis. That was in 1989, following a year of spiraling inflation, price shocks, and cash-flow woes. One telling, if unsexy, demand of the university students protesting at Tiananmen was to hold accountable those who caused inflation.
Much has changed in two decades. China's financial managers are far more sophisticated. There are new unemployment and Social Security schemes that, in theory, offer more safety nets to soften the blow for laid-off urban workers. But as Pieter Bottelier of the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies in Washington points out, those systems, created within the last few years, are still in their nascent stages.
At the same time, there is, on paper, a broader array of options for disgruntled people to blow off steam. In recent years, Beijing has passed regulations that purport to give citizens limited avenues for policy feedback - including posting draft versions of certain "laws closely related to the interests of the people" on government Web sites for public comment. Such channels have so far remained basically dormant (and may well have been created quite cynically), but a prolonged financial slump could raise their profile.
Whether China's middle class will ultimately focus on discreet issues (more unemployment benefits) or broader concerns (more freedom for the media to detail white-collar problems) remains unknown. But the deeper the financial hole, the less likely political complacency.
Christina Larson, a contributing editor at Washington Monthly, reported from China this summer and fall.
Is Baluchistan the next battleground then?
The year gone by was the bloodiest in a decade for Baluchistan, the country's largest but most impoverished province where a low key insurgency has raged for decades, the Daily Times said. Official data showed a steadily rising level of violence, up from 303 people killed in 2005 to 433 in 2008, the first time killings crossed the 400-mark.
There were 120 bomb blasts, 208 rocket attacks, 141 landmine blasts and 32 hand grenade attacks in the past year, and it could have been worse if the three main Baluch nationalist insurgent groups operating in the area - the BLA, the Baloch Republic Army and Baloch Liberation Front - had not declared ceasefire, the newspaper said. One of them, the BRA, has announced the end of the ceasefire from the New Year accusing the government of of kiling tribesmen.The other two groups may well follow suit, the Daily Times said, warning of a difficult year ahead in the vast sparsely populated desert region that straddles Afghanistan and Iran...
Is Baluchistan the next battleground then?
Reuters Blogs
There were 120 bomb blasts, 208 rocket attacks, 141 landmine blasts and 32 hand grenade attacks in the past year, and it could have been worse if the three main Baluch nationalist insurgent groups operating in the area - the BLA, the Baloch Republic Army and Baloch Liberation Front - had not declared ceasefire, the newspaper said. One of them, the BRA, has announced the end of the ceasefire from the New Year accusing the government of of kiling tribesmen.The other two groups may well follow suit, the Daily Times said, warning of a difficult year ahead in the vast sparsely populated desert region that straddles Afghanistan and Iran...
Is Baluchistan the next battleground then?
Reuters Blogs
January 05, 2009
Gazprom says will cut gas deliveries to Ukraine by amount stolen
21:10 | 05/ 01/ 2009
MOSCOW, January 5 (RIA Novosti) - Gazprom will reduce its delivery of gas to Ukraine by 65.3 million cubic meters - the volume that has been stolen, the Russian energy giant's CEO said on Monday.
"There is a proposal to reduce deliveries across the Russian-Ukrainian border by the same volume that has been stolen from Russia - 65.3 million cubic meters, and in the future to cut volumes by the amount of gas stolen each day," Alexei Miller said at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who agreed with the suggestion.
Miller also said that Gazprom was ready to guarantee deliveries to Europe by buying gas on the spot market, and that as well as increasing transit volumes through Belarus, Poland and Turkey, Gazprom would increase volumes of gas taken from underground reservoirs in European countries.
Putin asked who would ultimately pay for the gas. "Naftogaz of Ukraine," Miller replied.
Gazprom cut off gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday after last-ditch talks with Kiev on a new deal for 2009 and debt repayments failed late on New Year's Eve.
Around 80% of Russia's gas exports to Europe pass through Ukraine, and some European countries, including Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, have reported drops in Russian gas supplied through Ukraine's pipeline network.
Miller has accused Ukraine's state-run Naftogaz of tapping Russian gas, which Ukraine denied, blaming Russia for creating the shortfall by deliberately cutting deliveries to Europe.
The Czech Republic said on Monday that Russian gas supplies had returned to normal after a drop of 5%. Local analysts have hinted that Kiev decided to restore Czech supplies in full to avoid antagonizing the country, which took over the EU presidency on January 1.
With Ukraine's gas debt to Russia from 2008 unresolved and no contract agreed for 2009 deliveries, the issue of Russian gas flowing through Ukrainian pipes to European consumers further west has become contentious.
In response to a claim by Ukraine's energy ministry, the Kiev economic court ruled on Monday that Naftogaz could not pump Russian gas westwards at a price of $1.6 for 1,000 cubic meters per 100 kilometers.
"It means that the contracts to which Gazprom are refering are void," Naftogaz spokesman Valentin Zemlyansky told RIA Novosti.
The ruling was rejected by official Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov.
"The resolution of the Kiev economic court is absolutely illegitimate," he said. "Our disputes can only be resolved in Sweden."
Both Gazprom and Ukraine's state-run Naftogaz have said that they will file lawsuits with the Stockholm Arbitration Court, which deals with international commercial legal disputes. The court on Monday said it could not comment on whether it was considering lawsuits from either party in the gas dispute.
MOSCOW, January 5 (RIA Novosti) - Gazprom will reduce its delivery of gas to Ukraine by 65.3 million cubic meters - the volume that has been stolen, the Russian energy giant's CEO said on Monday.
"There is a proposal to reduce deliveries across the Russian-Ukrainian border by the same volume that has been stolen from Russia - 65.3 million cubic meters, and in the future to cut volumes by the amount of gas stolen each day," Alexei Miller said at a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who agreed with the suggestion.
Miller also said that Gazprom was ready to guarantee deliveries to Europe by buying gas on the spot market, and that as well as increasing transit volumes through Belarus, Poland and Turkey, Gazprom would increase volumes of gas taken from underground reservoirs in European countries.
Putin asked who would ultimately pay for the gas. "Naftogaz of Ukraine," Miller replied.
Gazprom cut off gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday after last-ditch talks with Kiev on a new deal for 2009 and debt repayments failed late on New Year's Eve.
Around 80% of Russia's gas exports to Europe pass through Ukraine, and some European countries, including Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, have reported drops in Russian gas supplied through Ukraine's pipeline network.
Miller has accused Ukraine's state-run Naftogaz of tapping Russian gas, which Ukraine denied, blaming Russia for creating the shortfall by deliberately cutting deliveries to Europe.
The Czech Republic said on Monday that Russian gas supplies had returned to normal after a drop of 5%. Local analysts have hinted that Kiev decided to restore Czech supplies in full to avoid antagonizing the country, which took over the EU presidency on January 1.
With Ukraine's gas debt to Russia from 2008 unresolved and no contract agreed for 2009 deliveries, the issue of Russian gas flowing through Ukrainian pipes to European consumers further west has become contentious.
In response to a claim by Ukraine's energy ministry, the Kiev economic court ruled on Monday that Naftogaz could not pump Russian gas westwards at a price of $1.6 for 1,000 cubic meters per 100 kilometers.
"It means that the contracts to which Gazprom are refering are void," Naftogaz spokesman Valentin Zemlyansky told RIA Novosti.
The ruling was rejected by official Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov.
"The resolution of the Kiev economic court is absolutely illegitimate," he said. "Our disputes can only be resolved in Sweden."
Both Gazprom and Ukraine's state-run Naftogaz have said that they will file lawsuits with the Stockholm Arbitration Court, which deals with international commercial legal disputes. The court on Monday said it could not comment on whether it was considering lawsuits from either party in the gas dispute.
INDIA: Focus on human intelligence, new SWAT teams as CMs brainstorm on terror today
Indian Express, India
Shishir Gupta
Posted: Jan 06, 2009 at 0424 hrs IST
New Delhi: In a paradigm shift, the Centre has urged Chief Ministers to reactivate human intelligence networks in their states without reducing emphasis on technical intelligence and set up SWAT commando police units for special operations, and informed them of the beefing-up of the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) as the country’s core counter-terror mechanism. The Government has, through a classified order, put both the military and civilian apparatus at the MAC’s disposal in the event of a terrorist threat.
A 27-page agenda paper the Home Ministry has sent to Chief Ministers ahead of Tuesday’s meeting notes that human intelligence has got “considerably eroded” with an “increasing reliance on TechINT, which, although extremely and crucially important in its own place and requiring incremental development of capabilities, can never be a substitute for the former.”
The paper calls for the revival of the beat constable system, and urges state governments to develop domain intelligence by harnessing human resources within the community. Under the head of ‘Preventive Measures and Security Arrangements’, the Government has asked state police forces to carry out detailed security audits of soft targets like malls, multiplexes, hotels, hospitals and mass rapid transit systems with the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureaus in their states.
A key suggestion is to set up Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) teams to deal with terrorist situations. “Such teams would have the capability of rapid mobilisation, deployment and would have specialised weaponry, training, communications and protective devices.”
The Government has also decided that at least two companies in each of the 134 India Reserve Battalions would now have a commando component. A sum of Rs 6 crore has been approved per battalion.
At the heart of the proposal to enhance the internal security and intelligence apparatus is the December 31, 2008 order defining the role and power of the MAC under the Director, Intelligence Bureau. The order says: “It is necessary and expedient to establish a centre to counter terrorism and terrorist threats and bring under one body all matters relating to gathering, analysis and sharing of intelligence pertaining to terrorism, and devising strategies to vacate the threat.”
The Centre has informed Chief Ministers that subsidiary centres would be opened in all states, and that it is imperative that all data and intelligence inputs are forwarded to it.
The decision to redefine the powers of the MAC, originally set up on the recommendation of the Kargil Committee through a December 6, 2001 order, was taken in view of the agency’s failure to live up to its objectives and expectations. “While a (terrorist) database has been built, other aims of MAC have not been achieved; practically no data related to terrorist activities are received from the Central and state security forces and agencies.”
Shishir Gupta
Posted: Jan 06, 2009 at 0424 hrs IST
New Delhi: In a paradigm shift, the Centre has urged Chief Ministers to reactivate human intelligence networks in their states without reducing emphasis on technical intelligence and set up SWAT commando police units for special operations, and informed them of the beefing-up of the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) as the country’s core counter-terror mechanism. The Government has, through a classified order, put both the military and civilian apparatus at the MAC’s disposal in the event of a terrorist threat.
A 27-page agenda paper the Home Ministry has sent to Chief Ministers ahead of Tuesday’s meeting notes that human intelligence has got “considerably eroded” with an “increasing reliance on TechINT, which, although extremely and crucially important in its own place and requiring incremental development of capabilities, can never be a substitute for the former.”
The paper calls for the revival of the beat constable system, and urges state governments to develop domain intelligence by harnessing human resources within the community. Under the head of ‘Preventive Measures and Security Arrangements’, the Government has asked state police forces to carry out detailed security audits of soft targets like malls, multiplexes, hotels, hospitals and mass rapid transit systems with the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureaus in their states.
A key suggestion is to set up Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) teams to deal with terrorist situations. “Such teams would have the capability of rapid mobilisation, deployment and would have specialised weaponry, training, communications and protective devices.”
The Government has also decided that at least two companies in each of the 134 India Reserve Battalions would now have a commando component. A sum of Rs 6 crore has been approved per battalion.
At the heart of the proposal to enhance the internal security and intelligence apparatus is the December 31, 2008 order defining the role and power of the MAC under the Director, Intelligence Bureau. The order says: “It is necessary and expedient to establish a centre to counter terrorism and terrorist threats and bring under one body all matters relating to gathering, analysis and sharing of intelligence pertaining to terrorism, and devising strategies to vacate the threat.”
The Centre has informed Chief Ministers that subsidiary centres would be opened in all states, and that it is imperative that all data and intelligence inputs are forwarded to it.
The decision to redefine the powers of the MAC, originally set up on the recommendation of the Kargil Committee through a December 6, 2001 order, was taken in view of the agency’s failure to live up to its objectives and expectations. “While a (terrorist) database has been built, other aims of MAC have not been achieved; practically no data related to terrorist activities are received from the Central and state security forces and agencies.”
CAN INDIA EMULATE ISRAEL'S ACTION IN GAZA?
B.RAMAN
Ever since Israel started its military strikes in Gaza a week ago to put down the acts of terrorism of the Hamas, there have been demands from sections of analysts and the general public in our country that India should emulate Israel and retaliate in a similar manner against Pakistan for its complicity in the terrorist attack by the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Pakistani terrorist organisation, in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008.
2. Nobody can question Israel's exercise of its right of self-defence to protect the lives and property of its citizens from rocket attacks from Gaza by the Hamas for weeks and months now. As the Deputy Permanent Representative of the US to the United Nations said in a press interview after the US had refused to join in the condemnation of Israel's action by the UN Security Council: " Israel, like all other members of the UN, has the right of self-defence. This right is not negotiable."
3. Like Israel and other members of the UN, India too has the right of self-defence against acts of terrorism emanating from Pakistani territory and sponsored by the State of Pakistan and has the right to retaliate against Pakistan and the duty to do so to protect the lives and property of its citizens.
4. The question is not whether we should retaliate. We should if we want Pakistan and the horde of terrorists nursed by it to take us seriously. The question is whether a direct military strike will be the wise and appropriate way of retaliating against Pakistan or should we do it through political and diplomatic measures, followed by deniable covert actions if those measures do not make Pakistan change its ways.
5. For many years, Israel has been the victim of acts of terrorism by organisations such as the Hamas and the Hizbollah sponsored mainly by Syria and Iran. Its retaliation has been directed against these terrorist organisations and not against their State-sponsors. After the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 and the Yom Kippur war of 1973 Israel has indulged in military strikes in the territory of a sovereign state and a member of the UN only on two occasions---- against the Osirak nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq in the early 1980s and against the Hizbollah's infrastructure in the Lebanese territory in 2006. In the past,Israeli armed forces had operated in Lebanese territory on other occasions too.
6. Its action against Osirak in Iraq was a success, but its action in the Lebanon in 2006 against the Hizbollah was not. Despite its concerns over the nuclear sites in Iran for the production of enriched uranium, Israel has till now avoided any military strikes on these sites despite public pressure from sections of the Israeli people to do so. It did launch an attack on a suspected nuclear site in Syria last year, but as a deniable covert action and not as an admitted military strike.It has also indulged in covert actions against suspected Hamas operatives based in Syria.
7. It is able to indulge in openly admitted military strikes against the Hamas in Gaza because Gaza is not part of any sovereign State. In the past, Israel's retaliatory military strikes have been against terrorist organisations posing a threat to Israeli citizens and property and not against the States sponsoring them. Its actions against States sponsoring terrorism have been in the form of covert actions and not direct military strikes.
8. Practically all States facing the problem of terrorism have a covert action capability because it gives you a third option if political and diplomatic measures fail. If you don't have this capability, the only option you have if political and diplomatic actions fail is a military retaliation, which could be messy when used against a next door neighbour. If you don't use military strikes and if you don't have a covert action capability, the state-sponsor and the terrorists sponsored by it develop a contempt for you.
9. The US has bombed Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan in retaliation for their perceived anti-US acts, but it never does it against Cuba, its next door neighbour. It has declared Cuba a state-sponsor of terrorism and constantly keeps trying to undermine Cuba's political stability and economy, but avoids direct military action against it despite its being a super power because it knows it could be messy.
10. It is hoped the Government draws the right lessons from its dilemma after Mumbai and tries to revive quikly our covert action capability, which was discarded more than a decade ago as an ill-conceived unilateral gesture to Pakistan.
(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 ) Reply Reply to all Forward
Posted by B.RAMAN at 1:27 AM 1 comments
Sunday, January 4, 2009
LTTE: ONE MORE Q & A
B.RAMAN
Q.It was really interesting to read your recent article (LTTE after Klinochchi –Q&A) as well as past articles. But I would be happy if you can send me answer for my question. The War will mark major turn if the LTTE air men strike Kamikaze type attack on Colombo or other important places and military bases in Sri Lanka?
A.I am sure the LTTE must be examining the various options available to it. At present, it has very little opportunity for offensive action in the North when it is relentlessly under pressure from the Sri Lankan Army. However, it has the option of unconventional offensive strikes in other fronts far removed from the North. One such front could be Colombo. Another Trincomallee. The third Hambantota where the Chinese are reportedly constructing a modern port for Sri Lanka. Very often, turning points in unconventional warfare come when the terrorists start attacking the economic infrastructure. One saw this in the British fight against the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Mrs.Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister in the 1980s, took a very strong line against the IRA and waged a no-holds-barred campaign against it in Northern Ireland. The IRA managed to carry the fight to London and carried out some explosions in London's finance district where the offices of leading British banks are located. This led to a more nuanced policy towards the IRA instead of relying exclusively on brute force. One of the objectives of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) of Pakistan in attacking Mumbai on November 26-29 was to try to damage India's economic growth. The LTTE must be trying hard for mounting kamikazee type attacks on military---particularly Air Force ---targets in Colombo similar to its raid on the SLAF base in Anuradhapura. The fact that it has not succeeded so far would indicate that the physical security for such establishments is strong and that the LTTE is facing shortages of the required materials for such attacks. One notices that the LTTE has not yet used all the weapons in its arsenal. It has apparently retained for itself an element of ultimate surprise.
Ever since Israel started its military strikes in Gaza a week ago to put down the acts of terrorism of the Hamas, there have been demands from sections of analysts and the general public in our country that India should emulate Israel and retaliate in a similar manner against Pakistan for its complicity in the terrorist attack by the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the Pakistani terrorist organisation, in Mumbai from November 26 to 29,2008.
2. Nobody can question Israel's exercise of its right of self-defence to protect the lives and property of its citizens from rocket attacks from Gaza by the Hamas for weeks and months now. As the Deputy Permanent Representative of the US to the United Nations said in a press interview after the US had refused to join in the condemnation of Israel's action by the UN Security Council: " Israel, like all other members of the UN, has the right of self-defence. This right is not negotiable."
3. Like Israel and other members of the UN, India too has the right of self-defence against acts of terrorism emanating from Pakistani territory and sponsored by the State of Pakistan and has the right to retaliate against Pakistan and the duty to do so to protect the lives and property of its citizens.
4. The question is not whether we should retaliate. We should if we want Pakistan and the horde of terrorists nursed by it to take us seriously. The question is whether a direct military strike will be the wise and appropriate way of retaliating against Pakistan or should we do it through political and diplomatic measures, followed by deniable covert actions if those measures do not make Pakistan change its ways.
5. For many years, Israel has been the victim of acts of terrorism by organisations such as the Hamas and the Hizbollah sponsored mainly by Syria and Iran. Its retaliation has been directed against these terrorist organisations and not against their State-sponsors. After the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 and the Yom Kippur war of 1973 Israel has indulged in military strikes in the territory of a sovereign state and a member of the UN only on two occasions---- against the Osirak nuclear reactor under construction in Iraq in the early 1980s and against the Hizbollah's infrastructure in the Lebanese territory in 2006. In the past,Israeli armed forces had operated in Lebanese territory on other occasions too.
6. Its action against Osirak in Iraq was a success, but its action in the Lebanon in 2006 against the Hizbollah was not. Despite its concerns over the nuclear sites in Iran for the production of enriched uranium, Israel has till now avoided any military strikes on these sites despite public pressure from sections of the Israeli people to do so. It did launch an attack on a suspected nuclear site in Syria last year, but as a deniable covert action and not as an admitted military strike.It has also indulged in covert actions against suspected Hamas operatives based in Syria.
7. It is able to indulge in openly admitted military strikes against the Hamas in Gaza because Gaza is not part of any sovereign State. In the past, Israel's retaliatory military strikes have been against terrorist organisations posing a threat to Israeli citizens and property and not against the States sponsoring them. Its actions against States sponsoring terrorism have been in the form of covert actions and not direct military strikes.
8. Practically all States facing the problem of terrorism have a covert action capability because it gives you a third option if political and diplomatic measures fail. If you don't have this capability, the only option you have if political and diplomatic actions fail is a military retaliation, which could be messy when used against a next door neighbour. If you don't use military strikes and if you don't have a covert action capability, the state-sponsor and the terrorists sponsored by it develop a contempt for you.
9. The US has bombed Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan in retaliation for their perceived anti-US acts, but it never does it against Cuba, its next door neighbour. It has declared Cuba a state-sponsor of terrorism and constantly keeps trying to undermine Cuba's political stability and economy, but avoids direct military action against it despite its being a super power because it knows it could be messy.
10. It is hoped the Government draws the right lessons from its dilemma after Mumbai and tries to revive quikly our covert action capability, which was discarded more than a decade ago as an ill-conceived unilateral gesture to Pakistan.
(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 ) Reply Reply to all Forward
Posted by B.RAMAN at 1:27 AM 1 comments
Sunday, January 4, 2009
LTTE: ONE MORE Q & A
B.RAMAN
Q.It was really interesting to read your recent article (LTTE after Klinochchi –Q&A) as well as past articles. But I would be happy if you can send me answer for my question. The War will mark major turn if the LTTE air men strike Kamikaze type attack on Colombo or other important places and military bases in Sri Lanka?
A.I am sure the LTTE must be examining the various options available to it. At present, it has very little opportunity for offensive action in the North when it is relentlessly under pressure from the Sri Lankan Army. However, it has the option of unconventional offensive strikes in other fronts far removed from the North. One such front could be Colombo. Another Trincomallee. The third Hambantota where the Chinese are reportedly constructing a modern port for Sri Lanka. Very often, turning points in unconventional warfare come when the terrorists start attacking the economic infrastructure. One saw this in the British fight against the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Mrs.Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister in the 1980s, took a very strong line against the IRA and waged a no-holds-barred campaign against it in Northern Ireland. The IRA managed to carry the fight to London and carried out some explosions in London's finance district where the offices of leading British banks are located. This led to a more nuanced policy towards the IRA instead of relying exclusively on brute force. One of the objectives of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) of Pakistan in attacking Mumbai on November 26-29 was to try to damage India's economic growth. The LTTE must be trying hard for mounting kamikazee type attacks on military---particularly Air Force ---targets in Colombo similar to its raid on the SLAF base in Anuradhapura. The fact that it has not succeeded so far would indicate that the physical security for such establishments is strong and that the LTTE is facing shortages of the required materials for such attacks. One notices that the LTTE has not yet used all the weapons in its arsenal. It has apparently retained for itself an element of ultimate surprise.
INDIA : The Covert Option
India should build up its psychological and cyber warfare to thwart terrorism
VIKRAM SOOD
02 Jan 2009
This time, in Mumbai, the enormity of the ongoing tragedy really hit ‘us’. The debate about the how and why and what to do next has been on for a month now, unlike in the past when bomb blasts and killings were about ‘them’ and handled by the ‘others’. Shaken from the secure comfort of our opulence and tearful of the loss of fancy places to eat, few of us realise that in the year that has gone by, 1,007 civilians and 368 security forces personnel were killed in terrorist-related violence all over the country. There are a few important lessons from this and one can only hope that the extreme anger of November will translate into cold determination for the future.
One has also to be realistic about countering terrorism. Like crime, it will never disappear completely, no matter what laws and agencies we have. It can only be deterred and contained. The Mumbai massacres are undoubtedly a lesson about our vulnerabilities, our huge security gaps, our disjointed reaction, our media hype and our weak response to Pakistan. As a result, we are today seeing the unfortunate spectacle of Pakistan, the obvious suspect in this case and many others that have preceded this, stealing the ground from under us and screaming that Islam and Pakistan are under threat from India. The suspect has changed the rules of the debate and smuggled in Kashmir into the equation.
Mumbai happened even though there was a semblance of some intelligence, but no one connected the dots. We may not be lucky next time, and there will be a next time unless we do several things in the short term and others in the long term. Every terrorist attack is a learning experience for the terrorist and he comes back stronger and deadlier. Unfortunately, the State learns less.
We must also admit that quite a few of the things that happen or do not happen do so because of the way we are. The contempt the citizen has for the law in India is visible on our streets all over the country, and the state shows its indifference when it fails to correct this. It is a sad reflection on our polity that promises bijli, sadak and paani (electricity, roads and water) as an election slogan 60 years after Independence. Obviously, the State has receded when we find that those who have the means no longer depend upon it. They get themselves a generator when the State does not supply electricity, dig tube wells when there is no water, and hire private guards when there is no security.
Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata’s comment — “We will protect ourselves and we will try to deter such activities again and we will seek external expertise for the same’’ — has a significance that may have escaped many. What he is saying in effect is that India will have to move up from the present system of merely gated communities with unarmed guards to a system where the corporate sector must learn to anticipate and protect itself against lethal attacks. In a sense it means that the State will not or cannot protect or provide security to all its national assets. Possibly this means entering into the sphere of corporate warriors where each big corporate house has its own security apparatus more in the style of Blackwater, Dyncorp or Vinnel of the US. It was Dyncorp personnel who provided security to Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai in the initial days. Considerable security work has been outsourced in Iraq and Saudi Arabia to private warriors. Maybe that is the need of the hour because the first thing that we need to do in the short term is to protect ourselves and to make our vulnerable national assets invulnerable.
This would leave the State free to handle those responsible for spreading terror. This means taking on Pakistan differently from the way we have in recent years. Talking peace with Pakistan may be necessary, but we should not delude ourselves into assuming that Pakistan’s attitude will change. With a 7,500-km sea frontier and porous land borders, we will always be vulnerable to terrorist attacks launched by an implacable foe. They cannot be guarded by good intentions and fond hopes. Pakistan has been fighting a proxy war especially after 1971 at places and times of its choosing. It is a total war against India and we must treat it so. Other than adopting defensive postures, we have done precious little to teach the perpetrator a lesson.
Getting ready for Pakistan and its terrorists extends beyond modernising the armed forces with the latest aircraft, tanks or submarines. It means above all ensuring a highly professional and sharp intelligence capability. It means equipping our specialised forces with the most lethal and suitable equipment, and keeping them agile, trained and mobile for all times. It means empowering the local state units adequately in every sense of the word to be the first respondents in a crisis. It means developing a covert option.
This probably sounds sinister, but a country’s national interests are protected by hard-nosed realism and not by soft options. A State is respected by others only if it is able to protect its interests and project its power. If India is seen to be soft and weak by our neighbours, we will lose respect even here. The covert option is something many States have and they use it, too. The Americans are quite free and easy in announcing that they have set aside funds to destabilise an unfriendly regime. The same rules do not apply to us but the principles of trade craft are usable.
Covert action can be of various kinds. One is the paramilitary option, which is what the Pakistanis have been using against us. It is meant to hurt, destabilise or retaliate. The second is the psychological war option, which is a very potent and unseen force. It is an all weather option and constitutes essentially changing perceptions of friends and foes alike. The media is a favourite instrument, provided it is not left to the bureaucrats because then we will end up with some clumsy and implausible propaganda effort. More than the electronic and print media, it is now the internet and YouTube that can be the next-generation weapons of psychological war. Terrorists use these liberally and so should those required to counter terrorism.
The third weapon in the covert option is the use of cyber techniques. This is an ability to intercept cyber networks and communications, cripple systems and carry out counter attacks on the enemy’s systems. In a country that boasts its brain power, it should not be difficult to find such expertise.
Despite the latest drama on our borders, future wars are unlikely to engage massive armies locked in prolonged battle for real estate. Attacks could be of the Mumbai kind or come by stealth, master-minded by some computer whiz kid and the targets are our ways of life. Unless the State learns to be flexible and agile, and unless there is full international cooperation, it will always be an uphill struggle with the peak never really visible. The covert option is more than just blowing bridges and killing innocents. At all times, it should form part of a State’s armoury. It takes years to build this capability and just a few weeks to destroy this.
The author is a former secretary of Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW)
(Businessworld Issue 06-12 January 2009)
January 03, 2009
Plight of women in Swat
By Khurshid Khan
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
THE current situation in Swat is such that any sign of peace in the valley has been washed away. The people are living through the most miserable phase of its history. No doubt, the valley has witnessed invasions, turbulence and chaos from the time of Alexander’s invasion in 327 BC to the formation of Swat state in 1917.
However, at least in living memory the present chaos engendered by militancy has no parallel. It has adversely affected the physical and cultural environment, the economy, tourism, trade, governance and social life in the valley.
Unfortunately, in all this, women have been the worst sufferers. The militants’ obscurant version of Islam begins and ends with womenfolk. According to their belief, women are the source of all sins. A cleric while delivering the Friday sermon in Marghazar village was heard telling his flock, “My fellow Muslims, listen! The prices of daily commodities are rising because women abandon their homes and loiter about in the markets.”
In fact, the Fazlullah-led militants have announced a complete ban on female education from Jan 15, 2008 on FM radio. Some days ago, they announced that no government or private educational institution would be allowed to enrol girls and that all schools and colleges should stop educating them by Jan 15. Schools found violating this ban would be blown up. Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan somewhat modified the announcement saying that schools would remain closed until an Islamic curriculum was devised for imparting education to girls.
Parents and students have lost hope of schools reopening in this volatile atmosphere. The militants have usually been seen to follow up on their words and, despite the army’s presence, there have been no signs of the restoration of peace and harmony.
The militants have bombed or torched more than 100 girls’ schools and colleges to forcibly stop 80,000 girls from going to school in the district. There were 10 high schools, four higher secondary schools and four degree-awarding colleges and a network of primary schools across the district for girls and women, besides a postgraduate institution for young men and women to study at the master’s level.
Against the culture of keeping womenfolk away from development, the rulers of Swat state (1917-1969) encouraged female literacy, the first step on the way to progress, by establishing girls’ schools and colleges. The valley had the highest female literacy rate as compared to neighbouring districts.
After the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, their repressive activities started getting support in the Pakhtun areas of Pakistan along the Durand Line. Swat is among the more recent victims of Talibanisation. The secular nature of Swati society is slowly and gradually leaning towards extremism.
The clergy first started speaking against girls’ and women’s education through unauthorised FM radios and at public gatherings. But as they got more emboldened, they attempted to stall female education — and eliminate the presence of girls and women in the market — through fiercer means including bomb blasts. Many schools have been destroyed in this way.
Then they turned their wrath on women doctors and the female nursing staff in hospitals warning them to observe strict purdah, confine themselves only to wards for women and not to attend calls on their cellphones. The medical superintendent of a group of hospitals complied with the order and circulated a notice to the entire female staff telling them to do as they had been told. Women patients and visitors were also advised to conform to Taliban instructions.
Militants also ordered the segregation of students at the Saidu Medical College, telling the principal to keep away women students from research labs after a certain time. Meanwhile, another college refused to take in women because of the continuous threats of the militants from 2007 onwards. Militants regularly monitor hospitals and colleges. In fact, working women and those attending school or college, or going to the doctor or in the marketplace are given a bad character by the militants.
Indiscriminate mortar shelling has hit houses and killed and injured civilians. In these, the toll for women casualties has been higher since they are more often at home, while unannounced road obstructions or curfews have made sudden medical emergencies, especially among pregnant women, difficult to be attended to. As a consequence women have lost their newborns as they have not been able to make it to the hospital in time. Besides, with their men also casualties of militancy, many of them are losing breadwinners in the family.
The threatened closure of educational institutions has proved to be the last nail in the coffin. The mindset of the militants — who routinely resort to the violation of fundamental rights in order to accomplish their goal — is clear and their misused and illegal authority has led them to establish a state within a state. Swat is not a no-man’s-land and is very much an integral part of the country. By tradition its inhabitants are not religious bigots. In fact, society in Swat is more civilised and accommodating of opinions than the rest of the Pakhtun belt. Islamabad should understand that and break its silence to take assertive action against the militants if it does not want Talibanisation to engulf the area and paralyse the entire structure of society.
Where are all the international and national human rights organisations and women rights groups? They must raise a collective voice against this victimisation of Swati women and girls. It is also time for the media to take drastic steps to highlight the current lot of Swati women whose repressive treatment should also serve as a wake-up call for women parliamentarians to take an active part in rescuing them from the spread of a venomous culture.
udyana64@yahoo.com
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
THE current situation in Swat is such that any sign of peace in the valley has been washed away. The people are living through the most miserable phase of its history. No doubt, the valley has witnessed invasions, turbulence and chaos from the time of Alexander’s invasion in 327 BC to the formation of Swat state in 1917.
However, at least in living memory the present chaos engendered by militancy has no parallel. It has adversely affected the physical and cultural environment, the economy, tourism, trade, governance and social life in the valley.
Unfortunately, in all this, women have been the worst sufferers. The militants’ obscurant version of Islam begins and ends with womenfolk. According to their belief, women are the source of all sins. A cleric while delivering the Friday sermon in Marghazar village was heard telling his flock, “My fellow Muslims, listen! The prices of daily commodities are rising because women abandon their homes and loiter about in the markets.”
In fact, the Fazlullah-led militants have announced a complete ban on female education from Jan 15, 2008 on FM radio. Some days ago, they announced that no government or private educational institution would be allowed to enrol girls and that all schools and colleges should stop educating them by Jan 15. Schools found violating this ban would be blown up. Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan somewhat modified the announcement saying that schools would remain closed until an Islamic curriculum was devised for imparting education to girls.
Parents and students have lost hope of schools reopening in this volatile atmosphere. The militants have usually been seen to follow up on their words and, despite the army’s presence, there have been no signs of the restoration of peace and harmony.
The militants have bombed or torched more than 100 girls’ schools and colleges to forcibly stop 80,000 girls from going to school in the district. There were 10 high schools, four higher secondary schools and four degree-awarding colleges and a network of primary schools across the district for girls and women, besides a postgraduate institution for young men and women to study at the master’s level.
Against the culture of keeping womenfolk away from development, the rulers of Swat state (1917-1969) encouraged female literacy, the first step on the way to progress, by establishing girls’ schools and colleges. The valley had the highest female literacy rate as compared to neighbouring districts.
After the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, their repressive activities started getting support in the Pakhtun areas of Pakistan along the Durand Line. Swat is among the more recent victims of Talibanisation. The secular nature of Swati society is slowly and gradually leaning towards extremism.
The clergy first started speaking against girls’ and women’s education through unauthorised FM radios and at public gatherings. But as they got more emboldened, they attempted to stall female education — and eliminate the presence of girls and women in the market — through fiercer means including bomb blasts. Many schools have been destroyed in this way.
Then they turned their wrath on women doctors and the female nursing staff in hospitals warning them to observe strict purdah, confine themselves only to wards for women and not to attend calls on their cellphones. The medical superintendent of a group of hospitals complied with the order and circulated a notice to the entire female staff telling them to do as they had been told. Women patients and visitors were also advised to conform to Taliban instructions.
Militants also ordered the segregation of students at the Saidu Medical College, telling the principal to keep away women students from research labs after a certain time. Meanwhile, another college refused to take in women because of the continuous threats of the militants from 2007 onwards. Militants regularly monitor hospitals and colleges. In fact, working women and those attending school or college, or going to the doctor or in the marketplace are given a bad character by the militants.
Indiscriminate mortar shelling has hit houses and killed and injured civilians. In these, the toll for women casualties has been higher since they are more often at home, while unannounced road obstructions or curfews have made sudden medical emergencies, especially among pregnant women, difficult to be attended to. As a consequence women have lost their newborns as they have not been able to make it to the hospital in time. Besides, with their men also casualties of militancy, many of them are losing breadwinners in the family.
The threatened closure of educational institutions has proved to be the last nail in the coffin. The mindset of the militants — who routinely resort to the violation of fundamental rights in order to accomplish their goal — is clear and their misused and illegal authority has led them to establish a state within a state. Swat is not a no-man’s-land and is very much an integral part of the country. By tradition its inhabitants are not religious bigots. In fact, society in Swat is more civilised and accommodating of opinions than the rest of the Pakhtun belt. Islamabad should understand that and break its silence to take assertive action against the militants if it does not want Talibanisation to engulf the area and paralyse the entire structure of society.
Where are all the international and national human rights organisations and women rights groups? They must raise a collective voice against this victimisation of Swati women and girls. It is also time for the media to take drastic steps to highlight the current lot of Swati women whose repressive treatment should also serve as a wake-up call for women parliamentarians to take an active part in rescuing them from the spread of a venomous culture.
udyana64@yahoo.com
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