The Lal Masjid and the mindset of despair

Robert Jensen in Islamabad

The Lal Masjid story is framed as crazed radical Islamist forces challenging relatively restrained government forces. But there is much more to it.
   For my first three days in Pakistan, no conversation could go more than a few minutes without a reference to the crisis at the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) compound. I had landed in Islamabad on July 8, and by then it seemed clear that government forces would eventually storm the mosque and the attached women's seminary to end the confrontation with fundamentalist clerics and their supporters.
   The final assault was finally unleashed as two companions and I drove to Lahore as part of a lecture tour. During several hours of intense discussion in the car, they gave me background and details that explained the real tragedy of the conflict.
   When the news of the final assault came via cell phone we all fell silent, and we all quietly cried - for those killed and for opportunities lost, out of our grief and from our fear.
   In the western news media and even much of the Pakistani press, the story was framed as crazed radical Islamist forces challenging relatively restrained government forces. Indeed, the two brothers who ran the mosque preached an interpretation of Islam that was mostly reactionary and sometimes violent. None of us in the car - two Muslims and one Christian, all progressive in theological and political thought - supported such views.
   But there was more to the story. Farid Esack, (http://www.hds.harvard.edu/faculty/visit/esack.html), one of the world's foremost progressive Muslim theologians who was in Pakistan to teach and lecture and Junaid Ahmad, (http://www.interfaithjustpeace.org/speakers.php#ahmad) a Pakistani-American activist and law student directing the lecture series, both pointed out that key social and economic aspects of the story were being overlooked.
   
   Economic inequality
   In addition to calls for shariah law under a fundamentalist Islamic state, Lal Masjid imams Abdur Rashid Ghazi and Mohammed Abdul Aziz critiqued the corruption of Pakistani political, military, and economic elites, highlighting the living conditions of the millions of Pakistanis living in poverty. As in most third world societies, the inequality gap here has widened in recent years, as those who find their place in the U.S.-dominated neoliberal economic project prosper while most ordinary people suffer, especially the poor.
   "We can reject the jihadist and patriarchal aspects and still recognise that there is in this fundamentalist philosophy a call for social justice, a challenge to the power-seeking and greed of elites," said Esack, the author of Qur'an: Liberation and Pluralism. "When I spoke with Ghazi, it was clear that was an important part of his thinking, and it's equally clear that the appeal of this theology is magnified by the lack of meaningful calls for justice from other sectors of society."
   Esack, who teaches at Harvard Divinity School and is a former national commissioner for gender equality in South Africa, had been visiting the mosque regularly and speaking to Ghazi and others inside until government forces sealed the area a few days earlier. A native of South Africa who was active in the struggle against apartheid, Esack spent much of his childhood in Pakistan at a madrassa, where he was a classmate of Aziz. Contrary to the media image of Ghazi, the cleric had a broader agenda and wanted to learn more about how an Islamic state could be structured to ensure economic equality, Esack said.
   "My vision of an inclusive polity influenced by progressive Islamic values is very different than Ghazi's, of course, but his theology should not be reduced to a caricature, as it so often was, especially in the West," Esack said.
   Ahmad emphasised that another crucial part of the story involved economics, specifically land. Press reports focused on the provocative activities of students and supporters of Lal Masjid members threatening video store owners, raiding brothels, and clashing with police, but an underlying cause of the conflict was the existence of "unauthorised" mosques. Many of these mosques and madrassas had been built without permits on unused public land in Islamabad. As the city has grown more crowded and developers eyed that real estate for commercial building, the government took the risky step of destroying some of those mosques (though the many non-religious, profit-generating projects also built without permits remain undisturbed). Clerics protested, adding to the intensity of the Lal Masjid conflict.
   
   The Islamabad factor
   Esack and Ahmad agreed that another aspect of the crisis mostly ignored in the press was the fact that the events played out in Islamabad, home to the more secular-liberal and privileged elements of the society. While those liberals might ignore such movements and conflicts in the outer provinces, many found it offensive that such an embarrassing incident could happen in the capital, where the world eventually would pay attention.
   "We hear about how this is bad for the image of Pakistan, with no comment about the lives of ordinary Pakistanis and the substance of what the country is about," Ahmad said. "Instead of talking about these fundamental questions of justice, many people wanted to see the incident ended to avoid further tarnishing of the country's image. It's like the obsession the United States has with simply changing its image in the Muslim world rather than recognising the injustice of its policies."
   In the construction of that image, the stories of the reality of the lives of people at Lal Masjid are typically untold. As the crisis unfolded and some of the madrassa students left the compound, the government gave them some money and told them to go home.
   "The problem is, many had no homes to go to," Ahmad said. "Whatever the reactionary theology of Lal Masjid, it provided a place for many who were dispossessed or from poor families. If the economy ignores people and the state provides nothing, where will they go?"
   My trip to Pakistan had been set months in advance; my presence there during this crisis was coincidence. Throughout my stay, as I listened to the discussion about the conflict, I realised how much less I could have understood the events if I had been in the United States, even though I would have been reading the international press on the web. The complexity of such stories so rarely makes it into print, and the humanity of the people demonised drops out all too easily.
   As we drove in silence, I thought of how easy it is from positions of safety and comfort to denounce fundamentalism, how often I have done just that. But who are we targeting when we make such statements? I have no trouble denouncing the bin Ladens and al-Zawahiris, or the Bushs and Robertsons, and critiquing their twisted worldview. But what of the ordinary people struggling against the elites who ignore the cries of the suffering? When those people take up a fundamentalist theology that we western left-progressives reject, must we not highlight the inequality we also say we oppose?
   Esack said some have asked him what he hoped to gain by going to Lal Masjid and talking with someone like Ghazi, but he has no doubts about the value and appropriateness of his visits there.
   "When we abandon engagement and dialogue with those who hold these beliefs, we are abandoning hope. My goal is not to wall myself off from other Muslims, but to search for authentic connections, even across these gaps. Is that not how we can heal the world, and ourselves?" he said. "It is precisely when we start to think of some of us as 'chosen' and others as 'frozen' that we happily become willing to defrost them with our bombs."
   
   Anger and deep sorrow
   That moment in the car, as we absorbed the news that the troops had cleared the mosque and that Ghazi and dozens of others were dead, I felt angry at people like Ghazi and at the same time a deep sorrow for his death. I felt a much deeper rage at Pakistan's military President, Pervez Musharraf, and the U.S. leaders who support him. And I felt a kind of fear for the Muslim fundamentalism that unleashes such violent forces, which always reminds me of the equally frightening Christian fundamentalist theology circulating in the United States.
   I bounced between a deep sense of despair and an equally deep sense of hope. Once the confrontation was set in motion, perhaps the people inside the mosque and the soldiers killed were doomed. But in the car in that moment, I could feel hope that the work of people like Esack and Ahmad was setting in motion other forces. Mostly I was grateful to be in their company to share the grief. In such moments, that connection is perhaps the most human and the most hopeful of endeavours.
   Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity. He is in Pakistan as a Higher Education Commission Visiting Scholar.

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Hassan Nafaa in Cairo

In the first instalment I wrote that Oded Yinon's 1982 study entitled "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s" is the most detailed account so far of the Zionist mindset; how it works and how it aspires to manage conflict with the Arab world in a way that leads to the creation of a dominant Jewish state in the region. My contention is that Yinon's study should be regarded as a practical manifesto of the Zionist movement, and not just the opinion of an obscure Jewish writer or a former Israeli diplomat.
   Yinon's study appeared in Hebrew in Kivunim (or Directions), a publication dedicated to Jewish questions and the Zionist movement in general. The Association of Arab American University Graduates took a special interest in this study following Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It asked Professor Israel Shahak, a well-known Israeli activist, to translate it into English. The study was republished with a foreword and epilogue by Shahak and given the title "The Zionist Plan for the Middle East", in order to show that Yinon wasn't just expressing a personal opinion.
   The most disturbing thing about the Yinon's paper is Egypt's central role in the Zionist movement's strategy to dismember the Arab world. Although the study was written about five years after former President Anwar El-Sadat visited the Knesset, four years after Egypt signed the two Camp David agreements, and three years after the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty went into effect, and although Yinon was fully aware that Egypt's signing of a peace treaty with Israel had cost it dearly, isolating it from the rest of the Arab world and undermining its standing in the international arena, this didn't change in any way how the Zionists regarded Egypt.
   Yinon was clearly convinced that no strategy to divide the Arab world would succeed without first weakening a country that has one-third of the Arab population and that is the region's acknowledged leader. So Yinon makes a point of proving that Egypt is weak, divisible, and nothing more than a paper tiger. Egypt, he maintains, won't be able to protect the Arab world against dismemberment and ultimate downfall. To prove his point, Yinon proffers three assumptions.
   The first assumption concerns the nature of the Egyptian political system. Yinon tries to prove that the Egyptian regime is incompetent, bankrupt and generally hapless. The state apparatus in Egypt is so bureaucratic and complex, according to Yinon, that it couldn't possibly take any initiative or achieve anything significant in any field. Although Yinon admits that the Egyptian army is an exceptional case, as it can sometimes break from the terrible grip of Egyptian bureaucracy, as it did in 1973, he claims that the rest of the country's sectors are in a miserable shape, fighting for mere survival and reproducing past mishaps in a manner that renders the entire country semi-incapacitated.
   The second assumption concerns the nature of Egypt's socio-economic system. Yinon argues that Egypt is overpopulated, short of resources, and technologically and scientifically backward to the point that it cannot provide for its population who live on a tiny geographical slice of the country's total territories. US aid has helped Egypt stay afloat, but this aid is linked to the peace process and therefore temporary. Yinon claims that the Egyptian social system is class-based and so discriminatory that a small part of the population is getting richer while the rest is getting poorer. Because Egypt's system of services, especially in education and health, is barely functioning, the country is unlikely to achieve real development in the foreseeable future, he notes.
   The third assumption concerns Egypt's stability and sectarian coexistence. Egypt, Yinon claims, is unstable because a significant Coptic minority is persecuted, marginalised, and excluded from any participation in public life. The Copts make up almost 10 per cent of the population. They are a majority in some parts of the south and have developed a tendency for isolation following the rise of fundamentalist Islam. The Copts are mostly ready for secession and would consider independence a good option, he concludes.
   Based on these three assumptions - which Yinon treats as indisputable facts - Yinon surmises that Egypt is superficially a strong country but is actually fragile and weak. The country's weakness became apparent in 1956 and a fact known to all after the 1967 defeat, which slashed Egypt's capabilities by at least 50 per cent. Yinon says that Egypt's restoration of Sinai, with its considerable natural resources, especially in oil and gas, gave it some respite. He adds that Israel should do everything it can to prevent Egypt from fully recovering.
   As part of its quest to divide the Arab world, Israel should follow a two-pronged approach to Egypt. First, it should regain control of Sinai. Secondly, it should encourage the creation of a dominantly Coptic state in Upper Egypt, Yinon suggests.
   Concerning the first objective, Yinon warns Israel against adopting a policy of compromise and territorial concessions. He advises Israel against giving up any of the land it occupied. Interestingly, Yinon makes none of the conventional arguments related to Israel's biblical claims. Instead, he offers arguments of a mainly economic nature. He says that Israel needs an increasing supply of energy, especially oil and gas, and some of the mineral resources of Sinai. Those resources, he argues, are essential to Israel's strategy and independence.
   It is not hard, however, to see through this argument. Yinon points, both implicitly and explicitly, to a long-term strategy. Sinai is a sparsely populated area and suitable for urban development. Sinai is an area that could be used to absorb the population growth among the Palestinians of Gaza, or even to offer a lasting solution to the refugees' problem. Alternatively, Sinai could be used to house those Jewish immigrants who - once Israel becomes the region's dominant power - would start arriving from other parts of the world.
   As to the Coptic issue, Yinon advises Israel to sow sedition between Egypt's Muslims and Copts with the ultimate aim of creating a dominantly Sunni Muslim state in the north and a dominantly Christian one in the south. Yinon sees this option as the best way to weaken the central state in Egypt and deprive the Arab world of the one country that could hold it together. Once Egypt is divided, Libya and Sudan would fall apart, even without foreign intervention, he says.
   I would like the young generations of Arabs, especially in Egypt, to note the timing of Yinon's study. This study came out in February 1982, which is a few weeks after the assassination of Sadat and ahead of Israel's withdrawal from Sinai, which was completed on 25 April 1982. Israel withdrew from Sinai in the scheduled time but only after it created a phoney dispute over Taba; a dispute that it hoped it could use as pretext to recapture Sinai. A few months after Yinon's study was released, Israel invaded Lebanon on 5 June 1982. It besieged Beirut, installed one of its allies in power, and forced him to sign a peace treaty on 17 May 1983.
   Had things gone according to plan in Lebanon, and had Israel been able to impose its hegemony on the Arab world, it would have turned against Egypt once more and found a pretext to recapture Sinai. Then it would have interfered in Egyptian domestic affairs and driven a wedge between Copts and Muslims.
   It should be remembered by the younger generation in the Mid-East that Israel's strategy was foiled only by the steadfastness of the Lebanese resistance, by the ability of that resistance to bring down the May 1983 treaty, and by subsequent Intifadas in Palestine. This course of events is what protected Egypt, however temporarily, from the designs that Israel had in mind.
   Israel's failure in Lebanon has saved the entire region from the partitioning Yinon talks about, and I will discuss this point further in my next article.
   But Israel's failure didn't stop it from trying. So it tried its luck once again in Iraq - also to no avail. Still, Israel hasn't given up, and it is not going to give up. So I urge all our young people to read what Yinon wrote. Read his exact words and not just the account I am giving here.
   The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.

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Hamas versus Al-Qaeda

Saleh Al-Naami in Gaza

She looked right and then left before crossing the intersection leading to the university. The traffic was being directed by four members of the special forces affiliated with the Interior Ministry, all from Hamas. Gawaher Ghadir, 21, is one of very few female students who doesn't wear a head scarf at the Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Nobody, either from Hamas or the security services belonging to the Hamas administration has ever asked her to do so. And she doesn't think that anyone is going to.
   Ahmed Ghannash, who sells music tapes and CDs from a stand on Al-Mukhtar Street, the thoroughfare that divides Gaza city into two, said that he resumed business after Hamas gained power. In the past, unknown gunmen threatened to burn his stand unless he stopped selling music recordings.
   Islam Shahwan, police spokesman at the Foreign Ministry, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the attacks on music merchants and Internet cafés are now close to zero, down from about 35 attacks per month in the past. In the six months before Gaza fell into Hamas's hands, an Islamic extremist group calling itself the Islamic Swords of Justice-a group believed to embrace some of Al-Qaeda's ideas-was particularly active in Gaza. That group called for the closure of Internet cafés and music shops. It attacked some of the parties organised at various wedding halls in Gaza and torched some of the educational institutions run by Christians. The group once threatened to harm female presenters working for Palestine Television unless they covered their heads.
   Father Manuel Musallam, head of the Latin community to which many Gaza Christians belong, said that his congregation feels more secure under Hamas control. He added that relations between his community and Hamas are very strong. Musallam goes regularly to visit Ismail Haniyeh, who briefs him on current developments.
   It is noteworthy that the Hamas parliamentary group includes one Christian deputy, Hossam Al-Tawil. Hamas appointed one Christian minister in its new cabinet, formed one week after the movement took control of Gaza. Haniyeh made it absolutely clear that his government wouldn't hesitate to confront all forms of religious "coercion" and would punish anyone "depriving the people of their right to act freely as long as they did not break the law." The remark was intended for those groups which embrace Al-Qaeda's ideas.
   The Haniyeh government and the Hamas movement go to lengths to distance themselves from Al-Qaeda ideology. In a remarkable move, they clamped down on the Army of Islam, the group that was holding British journalist Allan Johnston hostage. The Army of Islam is a clan- based group that acts much like Al-Qaeda. It demanded the release of some of Al-Qaeda suspects held in Britain, including Abu Qatada. Haniyeh's security personnel and the fighters of the military wing of Hamas encircled the neighbourhood in which Johnston was held, abducted several top aides of Momtaz Deghmesh, leader of the Army of Islam, and thereby forced him to release Johnston.
   A well-informed source in Hamas said that the movement's action against the Army of Islam was not inspired by a desire to win international sympathy or prove the movement's credentials. Hamas is simply opposed to Al-Qaeda's ideas. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that some Al-Qaeda leaders regard the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as an atheist organisation. Hamas, by contrast, sees itself as part of the MB. "Should we allow Al-Qaeda to have a free rein; it would end up attacking us," he remarked.
   So it is hard to take seriously President Mahmoud Abbas's claim that Hamas was trying to establish an "emirate of darkness" in Gaza along the style of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
   Walid Modallal, political science professor and prominent commentator, explained that Hamas follows a middle-of-the-road school in Islamic thinking, just like the MB. One may agree or disagree with Hamas, but it is not a movement that is about to copy the style or ideas of Al-Qaeda. Unlike Al-Qaeda, Hamas believes in democracy and the ballot box and wants to maintain close relations with international and regional powers. Modallal cited the efforts Hamas made to consolidate its ties with the Egyptian and Syrian governments, both known for their aversion to the MB. Hamas has also tried to maintain cordial ties with Russia, despite the events in Chechnya. So why are regional and international powers so dismissive of Hamas? You have to look for the answer in the attitude of regional and international powers, not in Hamas's ideology, Modallal said.
   Atef Odwan, parliamentarian and minister of refugee affairs in the first Hamas government, told me that Hamas was consistently distancing itself from all the ideas of Al-Qaeda. "It is silly to spend time making comparisons between Hamas and Al-Qaeda, but it may be helpful to note the position of the two groups toward women. Al-Qaeda doesn't allow women to be educated at schools. Hamas, by contrast, has female candidates on its parliamentary list, appointed women to cabinet positions, and encouraged women to get involved in media, political and social activities of the movement." Odwan said that Hamas believes that citizens have the right to act as they please, so long as they break no laws.
   Interestingly enough, Abbas's suggestion that Hamas was mimicking Al-Qaeda made no impact at all in Israel, where the issue was put to rest a long time ago.
   In late December 2001, Israel's internal security service, Shabak, said it seized a document written by Hamas leaders detained in Israeli prisons. In that document, imprisoned Hamas leaders warned against the spread of Al-Qaeda's ideas in Palestinian circles and especially among Hamas members. Imprisoned Hamas leaders described Al-Qaeda's thinking as "isolationist and destructive." The imprisoned leaders urged their colleagues to do everything possible to stop Al-Qaeda's ideas from gaining ground among Hamas supporters. Later on, preachers at mosques controlled by Hamas started warning the congregation against "admiring" 9/11, reminding worshippers that the Palestinians cannot survive without international support.
   Former Shabak chief Ofer Dekel, a man who used to be in charge of security operations against Hamas, is of the same opinion. He told Yediot Aharonot on 16 March 2006 that massive differences existed between Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Hamas believes in a combination of political work and military pressure and it understands the need for regional alliances and for public support. None of this is true for Al-Qaeda, Dekel remarked.

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Complex phase after success in the east

Jehan Perera in Colombo

The government has made plans to celebrate the defeat of the LTTE and the liberation of Thoppigala by the Sri Lankan security forces on a grand scale later last week. President Mahinda Rajapaksa is to be presented with a scroll by the heads of the Sri Lankan military informing him of the great victory in keeping with ancient kingly tradition. Government media units, administrative units and even schools have been instructed accordingly. The Rajapaksa government seems to believe in the ancient wisdom that man does not live by bread alone and is feeding the economically deprived people of the country with a heady diet of military victories.
   On the other hand, receiving scrolls is no guarantee of enduring success or an end to the war as Sri Lanka's more recent history would testify. In 1995, the man in charge of the Sri Lankan military forces, retired Colonel Anuruddha Ratwatte, who subsequently received a promotion to the rank of General, also arranged for a similar scroll receiving ceremony to announce the liberation of Jaffna from the LTTE or Tamil guerrillas. Undoubtedly bringing Jaffna under government control was a major military and political achievement, as Jaffna is the effective capital of Tamil civilization in Sri Lanka. But the war against the Tamil guerrillas has continued much beyond the term of General Ratwatte .
   Thoppigala, which unlike Jaffna is a rocky outcrop surrounded by jungle, was the last major military base of the Tamil guerrillas in the east. LTTE cadres would still be present in the east to harass the government, and engage in acts of guerilla violence. But the Tamil guerrillas no longer control territory in the east. With the fall of Thoppigala, the last remaining LTTE administrative centre has been dismantled. The media showed less savoury aspects of that administration, including small cage-like structures in which captives were kept. In addition, the home grown courts of law, the police and the civil administration system of which the Tamil guerrillas were proud of, will no longer be there to give legitimacy to the LTTE's claim of separate statehood.
   But there is a potential downside to this rooting out of LTTE structures. Whatever moderating influence that the political wing of the Tamil guerrillas might have exerted on its military wing will be reduced with the elimination of the LTTE's administrative and political structures. An ominous indication of this possibility has already come in the form of a warning by Tamil guerrillas' political wing leader, S P Thamilselvan in response to the fall of Thoppigala. He announced to the international media that the LTTE would be targeting economic targets to cripple the strength of the government.
   The LTTE may seek to boost its morale by making threats of a deadly nature, and by referring to past recoveries on their part. But on this occasion their defeat in the east is unlikely to be easily reversible by them on the ground. On previous occasions, such as in 1992, when the government took back full control over the east, the LTTE was able to make a comeback by stealth in succeeding months. They did not need to launch major military operations against the government forces. Instead they waited until the government had to reduce its troop concentrations in the east for tasks elsewhere, to infiltrate back and gradually take control once again.
   On this occasion, however, the Tamil guerrillas will face a major problem in infiltrating back to the east in any significant numbers. This is because they will have to face competition from their former comrades from the breakaway Karuna group who are now present in the east with the support of the government forces. Unlike in the past, the reduction in the government's troop levels in the east will not automatically translate into a military vacuum that the Tamil guerrillas can fill.
   The indications at the present time are that the government has shifted the theatre of military confrontation with the Tamil guerrillas from the east to the north. On the face of it, the mismatch between the conventional strengths of the government and LTTE forces will mean that the government will have the capacity to overrun the LTTE defences in the north, as they did in the east. But the costs of such an exercise will be much higher, perhaps intolerably so, for two reasons. One, the Wanni is the stronghold of the LTTE, where government troops will face an undivided Tamil guerrillas unlike in the east where the Tamil guerrillas lost the support of the Karuna group. Second, the LTTE is likely to resort to increased terrorism in Colombo and outside of the north and east if its very existence as a politico-administrative entity in the Wanni is threatened.
   It is an accepted truism in Sri Lanka today that a political solution to the ethnic conflict is necessary for sustainable peace. President Rajapaksa is a foremost verbal proponent of this view in national and international forums. The end result of the government's military assault on the LTTE-controlled Wanni might mean its recapture and the dismantling of all LTTE administrative structures in the north and east. However, the grievances of the Tamil people that gave birth to the LTTE would remain to destabilize the polity. The internationally powerful Tamil diaspora would remain a formidable foe for Sri Lanka without becoming its ally.
   However, the Rajapaksa government has shown itself to be much less is sensitive to human and economic costs than its predecessor governments. So far the government has not been deterred by the array of charges leveled against it with regard to human rights violations, massive corruption and mis-governance. The question is how long the Sri Lankan electorate will be prepared to bear the heavy human, economic and moral costs of the war. While it is true that man does not live by bread alone, the government's diet of military victories is unlikely to allay the hunger in the vast majority of Sri Lankan people for economic prosperity, non-violence in daily life and moral governance.

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Child soldiers of Burma: Junta will
stop recruiting them

Larry Jagan in Bangkok

Talks between a senior United Nations envoy and Burma's acting prime minister Thein Sein in Rangoon, last week, may actually see an end to the recruitment of children into the armed forces, say observers. Following the five-day visit to Burma of U.N. Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy, Burma's military leaders agreed to set up a special government post to work with the U.N. on the issue of using child soldiers to quell ethnic rebellions.
   "The good news is they agreed to set up a focal point at the ministry of social welfare to engage directly with UNICEF," Coomaraswamy told presspersons. Officials involved in the talks with the government said Burmese leaders were accommodating and were committed to reducing the recruitment of children into the army.
   "We feel there is a chance the government may be fairly serious about cooperating-or at least being seen to be-on this issue," a U.N. official told IPS on condition of anonymity. "If nothing else, because it's on the Security Council agenda and because it gives them a chance to discredit the figure of 70,000 child soldiers that is being bandied about.''
   Opposition activists agree that the government's apparent willingness to cooperate is because they know this issue comes with a U.N. Security Council tag, and the last thing the regime wants is for the U.N. to have another excuse to put Burma back on the Security Council agenda.
   The head of the U.N. team in Burma Charles Petrie told IPS that since 2003 the U.N. has been able "to start addressing some very difficult issues" with the military government, including the problem of child soldiers.
   But while the use of child soldiers is still common in the Burmese army, there has already been a significant drop in the conscription of children into the army, according to international aid workers working with children in Burma.
   "In the past when army recruiters were short of new recruits they would press gang young kids from the few street children's centres that operate in Rangoon," a former aid worker in Burma Karl Dorning told IPS: "Since the committee was set up and we pointed out that it's illegal to recruit children under the age of 18, they have left us alone."
   Burma has been heavily criticised by human rights groups over the past two decades for recruiting large numbers of child soldiers, some as young as 11.
   The United States-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) estimates that more than 40 percent of the 350,000-strong army may be child soldiers. These youngsters are often kidnapped on their way home from school. They are then brutalised and physically abused during their induction and basic training before being shipped off to fight in the country's border areas. HRW has also accused some ethnic rebel guerrilla groups of using child soldiers.
   During her visit, Coomaraswamy met senior government officials, military commanders, representatives of civil society and affected children from conflict areas, according to U.N. officials.
   The envoy has been at pains to dismiss suggestions that her trip was a fact-finding mission. "This was not an investigation mission or a fact-finding mission," she told journalists in Rangoon at the end of her trip last week. "There are various reports with regard to child soldiers and the government gave me their point of view. But the purpose (of this trip) was to set up a monitoring mechanism, which the government has now agreed to."
   The next step is for the U.N. agencies on the ground in Burma, especially the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), to gather information on child soldiers and clarify the real situation before reporting back to the Security Council later this year, according to the special envoy.
   The government has become increasingly sensitive about the issue of child soldiers. HRW's comprehensive report, released in late 2002, provoked an international outcry and stung the junta into doing something about the forcible recruitment of child soldiers.
   The military regime set up a committee for the prevention of military recruitment of under-age children in January 2004. It developed a plan of action, which was adopted by the government in October 2004.
   But U.N. agencies and diplomats in Rangoon have continued to report the use of child soldiers by the armed forces as well as by rebel groups.
   No independent comprehensive assessment of the use of minors by government forces and ethnic rebel armies has been conducted since the setting up of the government committee. But the envoy's visit may have helped put a mechanism into place that will be able to do that in the future.
   However, the issue of the use of child soldiers by ethnic rebel armies remains more problematic. The envoy met representatives of the United Wa State Army (UWSA) who, apparently, promised to cooperate. But opposition sources believe this is highly unlikely as the induction and training of under-age recruits is a routine practice. Talks with three other groups mentioned by the U.N., the Karen, Karreni and Shan, have no even started because of government sensitivities, Coomaraswamy conceded.
   This was the second visit of a senior U.N. official to Burma in under four months. The deputy emergency relief coordinator and assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs with the U.N. agency OCHA, Margareta Wahlstrom, visited Burma in early April and is expected to return by September, according to U.N. sources.
   Diplomats see these visits as a hopeful sign that the junta is becoming more inclined now to engage the international community than it has been in the last few years. But it may also be the regime trying to split the international community's concerns about Burma.
   Just as the special envoy was relatively upbeat about the government's offer to work with the U.N. on curtailing child recruitment, the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) released a damning statement about the Burmese military regime for causing "immense suffering" to civilians and prisoners.
   Burmese soldiers repeatedly commit abuses against men, women and children living in communities affected by armed conflict along the Thai-Burma border. These include large-scale destruction of food supplies and means of production. The armed forces severely restrict the population's freedom of movement in these areas, making it impossible for many villagers to work in their fields. This has significantly affected the local economy, aggravating an already precarious humanitarian situation, according to the ICRC.
   "The behaviour and actions of the armed forces have helped create a climate of constant fear among the population and have forced thousands of people to join the ranks of the internally displaced or to flee abroad,'' Kellenberger said. Aid workers monitoring and providing food and medical care to the internally displaced in eastern Burma estimate that there are already more than half-a-million refugees there.
   - Inter Press Service

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