AUSTRALIAN ELECTION NOV. 24

Despite successes, Howard’s pro-Bush policy makes him unpopular

Barrister Harun ur Rashid

Australia will go through the general election on Saturday, November 24th. Conventional wisdom says that when economy is good, people don’t change the incumbent government. That means when individuals have money in their pockets, they are happy with the government.
   The gross domestic product of Australia is about $1.1 trillion. The country has been registering economic growth for the successive 16th years, of which Prime Minister John Winston Howard (68), a right-wing politician and trained as a suburban lawyer, has been heading the country for the 11 and a half years and has won four elections (Australia’s Parliament runs for three year) in 1996, 1998, 2001 and 2004.
   Currently Australia is in economic boom because China gets its minerals from the country. China is hungry and Australia, with its adequate mining resources, has been feeding well the Asian giant, exporting billions of dollars of minerals to China. This has a great positive impact on economy of a country of 20 million people. Unemployment is at its record low. More Australians visit overseas and young people (Y generation) does not think of any worry for their future. They are relaxed, outward looking and comfortable.
   When the national economy is so good, the surprise is that Prime Minister John Howard’s Liberal Party (Conservative Party) may lose the election. It sounds strange because his government has kept the electorate contented with tax cuts and has showered with many personal financial benefits. Howard seems to be puzzled why this time he is not popular with electorate when he claims he has managed the national economy so well.
   The reasons lie elsewhere and some of them deserve mention here: First, Howard made the same mistake Tony Blair made in Britain. He closely allied his political fortunes to the US President George Bush and his disastrous invasion of Iraq. Howard has sent Australian soldiers in Iraq, against people’s wishes. He played with his people tactics that were not ethical and honest. Until last moment, he only promised to send soldiers under the UN mandate but when the US unilaterally invaded Iraq, he supported and sent Australian soldiers to show solidarity with President Bush. He was perceived as arrogant by most voters.
   Second, he exploited the sentiments of people with tough immigration policy. When some Iraqis and Afghanis sought to be refugees in Australia in 2001, he ordered Australian soldiers on board the boat to take them to a distant Pacific Island-state Nauru. This is commonly known as “the Pacific solution.” He proved to most Australia people that he could protect Australia from immigration from Asian countries. Most voters above the age of 45 loved Howard for this decision. He won election in 2001. However the “Pacific solution” did not later work and Australia was perceived by international community a country disregarding international obligation under the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees. It was perceived by young generation that Howard had gone too far by instilling fear among the voters of the negative impact of immigration.
   Third, Howard, like President Bush, did not sign the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on Environment. He gave economy preference to environment. Australia and the US are the two countries among industrialised world that did not sign the Protocol, although they are one of the greatest emitters of greenhouse gases. Australia has been going through drought for the last few years and farmers are devastated with the loss of wheat crops (no wonder the price of wheat is very high in international market) and livestock.
   Scientific community accuses the Howard government of neglecting environmental degradation due to climate change. Young people have become very conscious of the ill-effects of environmental degradation, such as droughts. Now the Prime Minister has realised that he has made a political mistake in not attending to environmental-friendly policy. Most of the voters hold the view that sound economic management includes protection of environment. It seems it is too late for Howard to become an environment-friendly person.
   Fourth, Howard simply took too long to hand over power to another person who could invigorate the Liberal Party he has led for more than 11 years. He had an ego of becoming the longest Prime Minister of the country, beating the record of Sir Robert Menzies of 16 years of power in the 50s and 60s.
   He has forgotten that long incumbency on the same position tends to be boring to the electorate. Stale leadership brings no new ideas, no fresh imagination and no innovative direction. His emphasis is on sound economic management, but he forgets that economic management does not mean only tax cuts and pork-barrel spending. Tax cuts and big spending to please the voters has effect on inflation.
   Fifth, Howard did not invest more of the budget surpluses of the last decade productivity-enhancing areas like education, health care and infrastructure. There is a view among the electorate that they want more funds into services for community, rather than huge personal tax cuts (tax cuts brings bonanza for rich people). Housing affordability for young persons has become difficult at present.
   Education in the universities has become very expensive and the universities have not been provided funds on research and development. Currently there is a skilled shortage in the country and economy would suffer in the long run.
   Sixth, his introduction of labour laws has hurt the workers at a lower scale of wages because workers have to negotiate with employers about their conditions of employment. How could low-paid workers negotiate on an equal level with a mighty employer on conditions of employment when workers need jobs to live? Workers have lost protection under the new labour laws.
   Howard has been championing deregulating labour laws for a long time and he is ideologically committed to it. The laws have back-fired and most of the low-paid workers and young people have seen that they are in a disadvantageous position vis-à-vis an employer.
   Seventh and finally, the central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia, has for sometime warned the government of overheating economy and possible rising inflation in the country. It is the first time that during the election campaign on November 7 the interest rate was increased by the Reserve Bank to a quarter percentage point to 6.75 per cent, although the Howard government did not think it necessary. This has hurt to borrowers. Howard said sorry for the interest-rise to borrowers but the plea of sound economic management of the Howard government sounds hollow to most of the electorate because since 2004, interest rate has increased six times, although he promised to keep it low.
   Besides, some socially-conscious academics have described the degradation of political and social culture under Prime Minister Howard as social divisions between “winners” and “losers”, between city and rural area, continue to run deep, like those in Britain under Margaret Thatcher in the 80s.
   The narrowing of the national vision—closing of minds and hardening of hearts, failure of reconciliation with Aboriginal community, the treatment of refugees in prison-style camps, continuing ties with British monarchy (rejecting Australia as a Republic) and blindly following President Bush in foreign policy, are the cornerstones of the Howard government.
   Against the above background, the opposition leader of Labour Party, Kevin Rudd (50), a former diplomat, has seized all these weaknesses of Prime Minister Howard. Rudd is much younger than Howard, looks fresh and has pledged to sign the Kyoto Protocol and withdraw combat troops from Iraq. He has been making all the right noises in tune with most of the electorate. His Labour Party is now ahead of Howard’s Liberal Party in the polls.
   However, Howard is a cunning politician and cannot be ruled out winning another term. He advises voters not to trust the Labour Party to manage the economy, at a time when global economy is moving ups and downs. Furthermore, he has assured that he would hand over power half the way to his younger colleague, Peter Costello, the man who manages conomy in the country, if he wins the election. Howard is desperate to come to power, because his prestige and legacy will be in tatters if he loses the election.
   On 24th November, the world will know whether there is a change of the government in Australia. Labour Party has been without power since March 1996 and there is a chance it may come back again to power. If that occurs, President Bush will lose another of his closest head of government.
   The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.

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Turkey shows Islam and democracy are compatible

Pran Chopra in New Delhi

For most people in the West, including western Europe, Turkey is too far away to mean much to them, and in any case it has too many Muslims. Besides, most of its Muslims are not troublesome enough for the non-Muslim world to bother about them, as it does about the jihadi Muslims who live next door to Turkey.
   But each of these ‘western’ assumptions is dangerously wrong. Turkey is not only a physical bridge between the West and East. It also holds the key to the future of relations between the non-Muslim West and the huge Muslim mass which stretches eastwards from the Bosphorous to Indonesia and continues into southcrn Philippines, including countries like Iran and Iraq, which are a major preoccupation for the present-day West.
   The majority of the 75 million people of Turkey are Muslims, but far from being any part of the Islamic jihad against all that Europe stands for in jihadi eyes, Turkey has tried hard to be more and more like the West and it longs to be accepted by Europe as a part of the European Union. It is the only country which does not have a Christian majority and yet longs to be embraced as a member by the heavily Christian majority Union.
   A couple of specimens will show how superficial and biased are the impressions that Europe harbours about Turkey, and to boot, how misleading these can he.
   During a recent internal debate about a bid by the former foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, to become the president of Turkey (an office to which the people freely elected him only a fbw days later), his wife was shown wearing a headscarf. The point the picture tried to make was that the wife of the foreign minister was wearing a head dress which has been barred in government offices.
   But in the context of elections the picture could only be read as an electoral poster against the party now in power, because the ban was imposed by the present opposition party, which is closer to the army. It also overshadowed pictures of her hearty and jovial husband, who is always dressed in western clothes, as is the prime minister and most of his cabinet, and also the further fact that the street scene in most parts of Turkey is crowded with more people in western clothes than in any Muslim majority country.
   A few days after the headscarf came another pictorial misperception resulting in further misrepresentation of facts. The only election campaign pictures that appeared in my part of the world showed a huge crowd (of a hundred thousand, said the caption) waving flags of the political party opposed to Gul. The picture, of course, could not show the fact that this crowd, even if it was a hundred thousand strong as the caption said it was, was only a part of a country of 75 million with a Muslim majority. But it led to expectations of an electoral outcome which were completely belied. That often happens in elections, of course, but when the misrepresentations fall into a consistent pattern they defeat the purpose of news.
   That purpose can be better understood by looking at where Turkey is. On the one hand the geography of Turkey confirms what its recent history also tells us, which is also the meaning of what a Turkish news magazine said recently: Turkey has neither been divorced by the East nor is it married to the West. On the other hand the location of Turkey underscores its significance for the region, particularly in the near-term future.
   On one side of Turkey lies a whole cluster of countries which until recently were a part of ‘Eastern Europe’, with all that this term meant until the collapse of the Soviet Union. On the other side lies another cluster of countries, blessed or cursed by their wealth of oil, which in very recent years have denied their history and are currently trying to reinvent themselves. Both clusters would benefit if Turkey is allowed by the rest of the world to continue to carve its own path to a democratic future without worrying too much about the religious beliefs of the winners or losers so long as neither group tries to impose its own religious beliefs on the other.
   The Muslim majoritymb neighbours of Turkey had been founded upon an old enlightenment which was the first and most glorious chapter of the world’s civilisation. Then they were decimated by wars between tribes and petty kingdoms though they shared a new enlightenment in the form of Islam. Since then most of them have been trying to carry the burden of their history as best as they will. They may well benefit from the example of a Muslim majority Turkey which has been left free to follow its own democratic path and is accepted as such by the West without picking holes in the scriptures of its faith.
   Turkey offers to Islamic countries a good example which shows that there need be no conflict between the religious faiths of their peoples and any desire on their part to have democratic rights. If the same message were also heard by the ‘West’ it would ease the uneasiness it begins to feel whenever winds of democracy in the Islamic world are seen to be as a threat to Israel.
   Recent events in Turkey also suggest that it may not always be right to think that a political party backed by the army can defend democracy better than a party chosen by the people according to their wishes, whatever be their religious preferences. In other words, a country and its parties should be judged more by their actions than by perceptions which may be preconceived, so long as there is no reason to doubt that they have exercised their preferences freely and without denying this freedom to their opponents. Turkey can be just such an example if a rebuff by the West at this stage does not extinguish its present preference for democracy.
   Its democracy can encourage its non-Muslim majority neighbours to its north and west, and democratic freedom of choice in one Muslim majority country can encourage the same preference among Muslim majority countries to the east and southeast of Turkey; and both clusters may be happy to see it demonstrated that there is no conflict between Islam and democracy and between Islam and an embrace by the West. There might even be exciting possibilities here of Turkey playing a useful hand in the West’s disputes with Iran and Iraq.
   The writer is former chief editor of ‘Statesman’, India, and former visiting professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi.

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Fazle Raahid

Great fund of goodwill There is great fund of goodwill abroad for Bangladesh. Media here in Australia, both print and electronic have given wide coverage to the trail of deaths and devastation left by hurricane Sidr.The full extent of the disaster has yet to become clear.
   Though official death toll has been kept very low, two independent agencies, Save the Children and Bangladesh Red Crescent have estimated the death toll at 15,000 and 10,000 respectively. International Red Cross fear more than 900,000 families have been uprooted.
   The previous two cyclones claimed lives in millions. More than 500,000 people perished in 1970 and 143,000 died in 1991. US was the first to respond to the natural disaster by dispatching two war ships from the Bay of Bengal and President Bush and first lady Laura Bush expressing sorrow and anguish over the scale of disaster.
   Saudi Arabia has been more than generous in committing aid. The others who are chipping in are United Nations, EU, Australia, Britain, China, and India. I have never seen such a catatrophe in 20 years as a government administrator London’s Telegraph quoated  Hariprasad Pal as saying.
   
   Musharraf’s woes
   Pakistan’s Parvez Musharraf told Sky News of London that he had decided to quit but later ‘felt that he was the man to lead Pakistan to democracy’
   Musharraf in his drive to restore ‘democracy’ has clamped state of emergency, suspended the constitution, sacked the entire bench of the supreme court, silenced the media and put to gaol more than 3000 political opponents.
   Musharraf heard with uncomfortable ease the strong and harsh US rebuke. John Negroponte, US deputy secretary of state told Musharraf point blank that emergency was not compatible with free fair and credible elections. He asked Musharraf to release all political detenues and lay down his robes of the chief of army staff.
   What was more disquietening for Musharraf was Negroponte’s two meetings with General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Chief of Army Staff designate.
   Benazir Bhutto who earlier pledged to work with Musharraf has retracted her stand, rejected Musharraf’s handpicked Caretaker government and said would boycott the elections unless Musharraf quits the office of the chief of army staff.
   
   China climbs rich list
   United States have more billionaires than any other country, 415 by last count by Forbes Magazine .China has occupied the second slot. A year ago China had 15 billionaires, now it has more than 100 billionaires. They could now start buying American companies.
   Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was paid $5000,000 for a three hour trip to a luxury housing complex in China. He was paid by a Chinese real estate company
   China in the meantime has been accused of large scale industrial espionage of American Technology. China’s growing industrial strength has become a headache for America. China gets hold of secrets by any means possible including thefts, US officials said. China has not reacted to the allegation.
   
   Spendthrift Saudi Prince in Court
   Lavish spending by Prince Muhammad bin Nawwaf bin Abdul Azia, Saudi Ambassador to Britain has landed him in a court. He has a debt of three million British pound. This has laid bare Saudi Royal family’s lavish spending habit, the Guardian reported.
   His bills include many luxurious items. The Prince had also spent $2500 on a trip to Casablance that included expenses at the night club
   
   Verdict on Bush
   The historians will not be kind to him. Lyndon Johnson also from Texas has been given low marks for his Vietnam record. Like junior Bush, Johnson plunged US into a war on flimsy pretext and then saw his ratings sliding down.
   Bush’s flaws are much graver, wrote Steven Casey in the Sydney Morning Herald. Bush’s flaws have been strategic rather than tactical. Johnson inherited the Vietnam war from Trumam, Eisenhower, John Kennedy and could see no easy way out.
   Bush’s responsibility was to set basic direction for the so-called war on terror. And it is here Bush’s records compare most unfavourably with his predecessors. He promptly shifted his gaze from war on terrorism and committed to senseless war in Iraq. Bush got US bogged down in a disastrous war in Iraq,
   
   Middle East
   Chief Middle East envoy Tony Blair is set to announce an array of economic projects aimed at generating jobs for thousands of Palestinians, revitalising the occupied territories and creating momentum  for peace talks next Monday to be held in US.
   The Blair plan includes industrial parks, factories and agricultural ventures in the West Bank. The idea is to provide greater hope for the Palestinians, give them faith in the new peace process   and bolsters the moderate leaders.
   He may not be the British Prime Minister but in his new role as the MiddleEast envoy, Tony Blair can still turn on the old magic.
   Israel does have much faith on Tony Blair and would depend on US secretary of state Condi Rice for all political decisions.
   
   How are top women viewed
   Women aspiring for leadership earn two labels. The first is seen as nice and warm but incompetent and the second is as competent but unpleasant. But in recent years a multitude of psychological experiments have revealed that a subtler dynamic is at play.
   Women leaders are now perceived as mannish, conniving and ruthless not just by men but by women as well. Politics is tough and the only way to survive in male dominated field is to have sharp elbows.
   Margaret Thatcher of Britain was known as the ‘Attila the Hen”, Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel as the “only man in the cabinet”, Richard Nixon called Indira Gandhi “the old witch   .and Angela Markel, German Chancellor is called “Iron Frau’. About Hillary Clinton who is seen as the next occupant of the White House, the people say she has no heart or sense of humour never question her competence.
   Indira Gandhi was also called gungi gudiya, the dumb doll by her political opponents. Later events revealed that she was anything but not a gungi gudiya.
   There has been surprisingly no assessment about Megawati Sukarnopurti of Indonesia, Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh, Srimavo Bandernayek and Chandrika Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka. There have been four female prime ministers of the three most densely populated Muslim countries, an event that should have caught the eyes of those who see the rapid rise of fundamentalism.

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US LOOKING PAST MUSHARRAF

Behind the scene diplomacy while Negroponte sent to Pakistan

Helene Cooper, Mark Mazzetti and David Rohde

Well over a fortnight into Pakistan’s political crisis, Bush administration officials are losing faith that the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, can survive in office and have begun discussing what might come next, according to senior administration officials.
   In meetings on Wednesday, officials at the White House, State Department and the Pentagon huddled to decide what message Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte would deliver to General Musharraf — and perhaps more important, to Pakistan’s generals — when he arrives in Islamabad on Friday.
   Administration officials say they still hope that Mr. Negroponte can salvage the fractured arranged marriage between General Musharraf and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. But in Pakistan, foreign diplomats and aides to both leaders said the chances of a deal between the leaders were evaporating 11 days after General Musharraf declared de facto martial law.
   Several senior administration officials said that with each day that passed, more administration officials were coming around to the belief that General Musharraf’s days in power were numbered and that the United States should begin considering contingency plans, including reaching out to Pakistan’s generals.
   More than a dozen officials in Washington and Islamabad from a number of countries spoke on condition of anonymity because of the fragility of Pakistan’s current political situation. The doubts that American officials voiced about whether General Musharraf could survive were more pointed than any public statements by the administration, and signalled declining American patience in advance of Mr. Negroponte’s trip.
   Officials involved in the discussions in Washington said the Bush administration remained wary of the perception that the United States was cutting back-room deals to install the next leader of Pakistan. “They don’t want to encourage another military coup, but they are also beginning to understand that Musharraf has become part of the problem,” said one former official with knowledge of the debates inside the Bush administration.
   That shift in perception is significant because for six years General Musharraf has sought to portray himself, for his own purposes, as the West’s best alternative to a possible takeover in Pakistan by radical Islamists.
   While remote areas in north-western Pakistan remain a haven for Al Qaeda and other Islamic militants, senior officials at the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon now say they recognize that the Pakistani Army remains a powerful force for stability in Pakistan, and that there is little prospect of an Islamic takeover if General Musharraf should fall.
   If General Musharraf is forced from power, they say, it would most likely be in a gentle push by fellow officers, who would try to install a civilian president and push for parliamentary elections to produce the next prime minister, perhaps even Ms. Bhutto, despite past strains between her and the military.
   Many Western diplomats in Islamabad said they believed that even a flawed arrangement like that one was ultimately better than an oppressive and unpopular military dictatorship under General Musharraf.
   Such a scenario would be a return to the diffuse and sometimes unwieldy democracy that Pakistan had in the 1990s before General Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup.
   But the diplomats also warned that removing the general might not be that easy. Army generals are unlikely to move against General Musharraf unless certain “red lines” are crossed, such as countrywide political protests or a real threat of a cut off of American military aid to Pakistan.
   Since he invoked emergency powers on Nov. 3, General Musharraf has successfully used a huge security crackdown to block large-scale protests. Virtually all major opposition politicians have been detained, as well as 2,500 party workers, lawyers and human rights activists, and on Wednesday, a close aide to General Musharraf said the Pakistani leader remained convinced that emergency rule should continue.
   Pakistan’s cadre of elite generals, called the corps commanders, have long been kingmakers inside the country. At the top of that cadre is Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, General Musharraf’s designated successor as army chief. General Kayani is a moderate, pro-American infantry commander who is widely seen as commanding respect within the army and, within Western circles, as a potential alternative to General Musharraf.
   General Kayani and other military leaders are widely believed to be eager to pull the army out of politics and focus its attention purely on securing the country.
   Senior administration officials in Washington said they were concerned that the longer the constitutional crisis in Pakistan continued the more diverted Pakistan’s army would be from the mission the United States wants it focused on: fighting terrorism in the country’s border areas.
   The officials said there was growing worry in Washington that the situation unfolding in the mountainous region of Swat, where Islamic militants sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda are battling Pakistan’s Army, was a sign that General Musharraf — and the Pakistani Army — might be too busy jailing political opponents to fight militants.
   The administration officials said they were also dismayed that General Musharraf last week released 25 militants in exchange for 213 soldiers captured by militants in August, and agreed to withdraw soldiers from certain areas of South Waziristan.
   Since spring, concern has been growing in the armed forces that General Musharraf’s battle to remain in power and his recent political blunders have cost him popularity with the public and damaged the reputation of the armed forces, Western and Pakistani military analysts say.
   The army’s poor performance battling militants in the country’s rugged tribal areas in the northwest has placed enormous strain on the army as well. Hundreds of soldiers have died, dozens have surrendered without a fight and militants have carried out beheadings to demoralize the force.
   “The army is getting more and more concerned and worried and disturbed,” said Talat Masood, a retired general and political analyst. “They have a genuine engagement in the tribal belt of Frontier Province and Baluchistan,” he said, referring to armed clashes. “And now they have such a major confrontation between the military and civil sectors of society, and the lines are getting sharper.”
   While the military supports the emergency, it is doing so with caution, and there are red lines the army will not cross, Western military officials in Pakistan said. “Kayani is loyal to Musharraf,” said one Western military official. “But also to Pakistan.”
   One red line the military would probably not be prepared to cross would be if it were called on to maintain internal security anywhere beyond the areas of the insurgency. If widespread political protests were to emerge, the army could be called out to enforce law and order.
   While no large-scale protests have emerged since the emergency was declared, the apparent collapse over the last week of American-backed talks to create a power-sharing deal between Ms. Bhutto and General Musharraf could lead to more street confrontations, diplomats said.
   As General Musharraf has refused to lift his emergency declaration, lawmakers in Washington have stepped up threats to freeze aid payments to Islamabad.
   “There is widespread disapproval in Congress of these actions,” said Representative Nita M. Lowey, a New York Democrat who is on the House Appropriations Committee. “As long as the emergency rule continues, I don’t know if we can provide direct cash assistance to the Musharraf government.”
   But other top Democrats say they are wary about endorsing cuts in aid, citing concern that it could undermine efforts to fight Al Qaeda in Pakistan. And the Western military official in Pakistan warned that an aid cut off could anger Pakistan’s army.
   Other experts argue that pressure could build on General Musharraf if the corps commanders believed that the president’s actions threatened the $1 billion in annual aid Washington provides to Pakistan’s military.
   “The military is pretty demoralised right now,” said Christine Fair, a Pakistan analyst in Washington. “But what keeps Musharraf in the position he is in with the military is the huge largess from the United States.”
   David Rohde and Carlota Gall reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Thom Shanker contributed from Washington.

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Terror psychosis plagues people of Jaffna

Jehan Perera in Colombo

The troops in Sri Lanka killed 10 Tamil Tigers rebels in clashes in the north, the military said on Nov 19. Defence officials said that nine Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels were killed in separate confrontations with government troops in the Vavuniya district. Another rebel was killed in an engagement between the troops and the rebels in Mannar district. Fighting between the two sides has been concentrated in the north after the government said in July that the eastern province was free of rebels.
   “The only thing we can do is cry,” said the airline passenger by my side as we waited exhausted in the hot sun in the bus that was to take us to Jaffna from the airport. We had landed about two hours earlier at Palali military airport, but the numerous procedures that all disembarking passengers had to go through, including being photographed, had taken their toll on time. The passengers demonstrated a high level of patience and fortitude, aided no doubt by the fact that all around them were uniformed personnel armed with the authority to either detain them or send them back to Colombo. A few weeks ago it was reported that some foreign journalists had suffered the latter fate.
   Two years ago, when I last made journey in this route, the passengers on board the aircraft were predominantly cheerful and prosperous looking expatriate Tamils, returning to Jaffna to renew their family ties. Most of the passengers this time around looked anything but prosperous. They were making the journey by air because they had no other realistic alternative, as the A9 land route that connects Jaffna to the rest of the country now lies closed for over a year and a half. According to what I have heard the journey by ship is a terrible one which no one who is in a state of ill health or can afford the extra money will want to take.
   The flight from Colombo to Jaffna was smooth, although full of delays. We had been asked to report at the airline sales office in Colombo at 5.15 am to board a bus to Ratmalana airport a little outside Colombo. But the bus took its own time in leaving near to 6 am. At Ratmalana we had to undergo two security baggage checks, once outside the airport in a shed, and subsequently within the airport itself. There seemed never to be a sense of hurry, and so when the flight took off, it was past 9.30 am. It landed in Palali a little over an hour later. It took us over two hours until 1 pm to clear the formalities there, which included the photographing of each passenger in addition to an interview. Only then were we able to be on our way to Jaffna, hot and tired.
   One of the worst parts of the journey was the protracted stops within the Palali base to check and re-check our travel documents and our baggage. The facilities in which those checks were conducted were no better than cattle sheds. They were composed entirely of metal sheeting on plain gravel which gave a cloud of dust when dry and became mud pools when rain came down. It was clear that the concern of the military authorities was primarily the security of the air force base, and not at all concern for the comfort of passengers, some of whom were very sick patients, the elderly and toddlers. A redeeming feature of this harsh environment was the general politeness of the young military personnel on duty.
   
   Power imbalance
   When we were in Colombo, we had been somewhat apprehensive about the safety of travel to Jaffna. But the air travel to Jaffna, while tiring, did not seem to be unsafe. The only time I felt a sense of unease had nothing to do with personal security as such. It occurred during the procedure where I, along with all the other passengers, was photographed and interviewed by military officers who could decide on our bona fides and perhaps deny us permission to enter Jaffna. Sometimes the other passengers had problems explaining themselves, as the military officers spoke little Tamil and the passengers spoke little Sinhala, and their mutual knowledge of English was not sufficient to make it a link language in accordance with government policy.
   
   Overpowering presence
   In this encounter, it seemed that the military officer had all the power and we as a citizens had none. This imbalance of power that I encountered for a brief period summarises the reality of life in Jaffna for the people who live in the midst of an overpowering military presence at virtually every major street corner. Those of us who were in the bus waiting to be transported to Jaffna had a first hand view of this reality when a young woman was denied permission to board the aircraft that was making its return journey to Colombo after we had disembarked.
   We watched a protracted negotiation that this young woman had with the military officers, and then watched her walking to our bus with her head bowed and tears streaming from her eyes. As she came and sat in the bus in front of my seat, I had the opportunity to ask what had happened. It turned out that the blue temporary permit that we were all given at Palali for entry and exit purposes from Jaffna did not suffice in her case, as she was a university student in Jaffna. Apparently the rules in military-run Jaffna changed constantly. She also needed a special clearance from the Civil Affairs Office of the military in Jaffna. She did not have this. As a result she could not fly to Colombo to see her newly wed husband leave for Germany. It was then that the person sitting next to me turned to me and said, “The only thing we can do is cry.”
   
   High prices
   On approaching Jaffna by air it seemed as if we were approaching a lush tropical jungle. The bus ride into Jaffna took us through the high security zones of Palali. What had once been a relatively prosperous semi urban landscape had been converted into a literal jungle. The passing scene was dotted with the ruins of buildings that had once been the homes of people, and their community halls, businesses and work places. Now it was overgrown by trees. The trees have grown big over the past 10 to 15 years that this area was denuded of its people to ensure the security of the air force base from infiltration and guerilla attack by the LTTE.
   The drive to Jaffna was different from what I had expected. When the A9 road to Jaffna was closed by the government in mid-2006 on account of the government’s determination to isolate the LTTE, there was an immediate and severe shortage of goods. Prices rose by phenomenal proportions, in some cases four times the price in Colombo. But now what I saw from the bus entering Jaffna was well stocked shops, some with eye catching dolls dressed in colourful clothes to attract the attention of children and their parents alike. Later we were to find that the price of most goods was 25 to 50 percent higher than in Colombo, no doubt on account of the limitation of sea transport which cannot meet the full demand of the population.
   Although the curfew is supposed to be in force in Jaffna only from 9pm, the shops start putting up their shutters at about 4 pm. By 5 pm the people start to disappear from the streets. People do not wish to take a chance of being caught out after it falls dark. Ironically, at about 6 pm, when we asked a soldier on duty at a checkpoint who had stopped us what time the curfew commenced at he said 7 pm. The problem of communication between Sinhala speaking soldiers and Tamil speaking civilians is compounded by lack of communication within the military itself. On the positive side, the encounters we had with the military were invariably polite ones even before they knew our group had Sinhalese people in it.
   
   Brutal logic
   Having arrived in Jaffna I was able to find out more about the lives of the people that a superficial impression of seeing the well-stocked shops will not reveal. The waiter at the restaurant we had lunch at was the first one to speak about the fear that plagues the people. He spoke of the deaths that were taking place every day, with two, three, four, five or more people being killed with impunity, and with no one being caught. He said that just the previous day, the owner of the communication centre right across the road from where I was having lunch was shot dead at noon, in front of many people. Although the military is present at virtually every main street corner, the killers had got away in broad daylight. At night the terror was worse, which is why the streets emptied by early evening.
   The main topic of discussion on the three days I was present in Jaffna was the headline news in the local Jaffna newspapers regarding the army commander’s interview with the international media. General Sarath Fonseka was quoted as saying that in the current war against terrorism it would not be possible to prevent killings and disappearances from taking place. The frequent killings have created a terror psychosis in Jaffna where people do not wish to talk about politics because they do not know what will get them into trouble, and with whom. Although the army commander may have meant this as a truism, and the reality that is, this brutal logic was viewed with despair by the people I met.
   Those who are living in terror do not wish to hear truisms, but expect instead that those who are vested, and entrusted, with the authority of the state to look after them, to protect them, and not leave them to the mercy of the killer squads, whether they be government-backed or LTTE, against whom there appeared to be a sense of sharp disillusionment for putting the people into this tragic situation. But bleak as the situation is, the human tendency is to hope and to seek to communicate. We went to Jaffna to see if an international conference on religion and peace could be held there. The answer was an overwhelming yes. The people yearn to be in solidarity with the rest of the country, and with the world. They do not wish to be shut off or forgotten.

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ISLAMABAD DIARY

Jonaid Iqbal

The people of Pakistan are faced with their own difficulty, what with the political upsurge after the imposition of emergency on November 3, with President Musharraf mentioning interference in courts as the cause this time for the intervention.
   This week, the Supreme Court ruled that the petitions on the eligibility of President Musharraf could not be maintained, and hence very soon the Election Commission would notify Pervez Musharraf as the winner of the election held on Oct.6.
   
   Sharing misery of Sidr victims
   Very likely, Musharraf would be sworn in as civilian President this week, either today or tomorrow.
   That notwithstanding, news of 10,000 people dead in the wake of Sidr cyclone that struck Bangladesh recently – the casualty rate might rise — has touched many Pakistani hearts with sadness, more because a similar vicious cyclone in 1970 hit southern districts killing about 5 lakh people and the accusation of slow action on the part of the central government of Pakistan that laid the ground for separation of United Pakistan.
   President Musharraf sent messages of condolence on the loss life and for those affected whose homes and business was blown away in the powerful storm, exceeding abut 160 kph.
   The government also acted promptly in a small way to share the suffering of their former compatriots. It is now sending two C-130 relief aircraft with relief goods. Today Pakistan will send another two airplanes with 30-bed field hospitals in addition to a relief ship with blankets, food and medicines.
   The agony is also shared by the common people. A retired professor who visited East Pakistan in 1965, who is touched by the suffering of Bangladesh people, has been talking of raising money in aid of the suffering people. He said he was not thinking in terms of millions of rupees, but what he has in mind is to send a message that the people of Pakistan share the misery with their Bangladesh brethren.
   Reports say a number of villagers in the lower part such as Barisal and Khulna ignored the warning this time. Thereby they lost members of their family, as well as cattle, some times their only mean of earning a livelihood. Some people even tied their children to trees but the sweep of the storm carried away both the tree as well as children.
   Here, we notice a parallel here with the situation in Pakistan in 2005 when the 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck NWFP and Azad Kashmir. In Pakistan case it was not possible to give warning that an earthquake was about to strike. However, since that time we have embarked on constituting a disaster management cell to take such emergency situation.
   
   Embankment
   One recalls the cyclone that struck East Pakistan in 1960. WAPDA – as it was then called– undertook to construct 15 feet chain of high coastal embankment, creating a ring round the whole of the country. The embankment was topped with about 19 feet wide roads, to protect the coastal belt areas, near the Bay of Bengal, against violent tidal waves that cyclones invariably whip up.
   One wonders if the coastal embankments are still in place.

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