AMERICAN POLITICS AND ISLAM-II

Who's a terrorist, what's terrorism?

Habib Siddiqui

Over the years, America has evolved into the most dominant power in our planet, now much touted as the only super (or more appropriately, hyper) power. Her powerful navy roams around all the seas unhindered and unchallenged. To dominate the oceans and seas of the world, America has more than a dozen naval task forces built around aircraft carriers. She has military bases in all the continents of the world. According to the Defence Department's annual "Base Structure Report" (2003), which itemized foreign and domestic
   Pentagon owned or rented 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries and had another 6,000 bases in the United States and its territories. The number of foreign bases jumped to 737 in 2005. The worldwide total of U.S. military personnel in 2005, including those based domestically, was 1,840,062 supported by an additional 473,306 Defence Department civil service employees and 203,328 local recruits. Its overseas bases, according to the Pentagon, contained 32,327 barracks, hangars, hospitals, and other buildings, which it owns, and 16,527 more that it leased. As of May 2007, about 1,426,705 people are on active duty in the military with an additional 1,458,400 people in the seven reserve forces. One can justifiably assume that those numbers have now simply grown.
   
   Numerous nukes and WMDs
   From numerous secret bases, and satellites stationed in the sky, the US government can monitor what the people of the world, including its own citizens, are saying, faxing, or e-mailing to one another. US military budget equals the budget of the rest of the world. She has amassed so much nuclear warheads and weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that she could obliterate any nation on earth. With all such brute powers to destroy humanity at its finger tips the president of the USA is undoubtedly the most powerful man on our planet.
   US leaders are zealous to sustain this enviable status for all times to come. For years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, they spent billions of dollars on weapons programme, including the missile defence system, imagining that the threat to national security might come from hostile powerful states like Russia or China. In recent decades, prior to 9/11, national security concern was heavily focused on the possibility that unfriendly states like Iran or North Korea might launch or threaten to launch a missile attack on the USA.
   But 9/11 changed all such notions of false security. There is no doubt that 9/11 is a seminal event in American history. It has changed forever the history of power politics. The American public could never imagine that 19 individuals, armed only with box-cutters and a firm determination, could attack America. With all the weapons in their disposal, they had imagined invulnerability unto America. According to Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, never before had so much pain been inflicted on so powerful many by so impotent few. Therein lies the dilemma for the world's only superpower: how to cope with an enemy that is physically weak but endowed with an unfathomed passion?
   
   History of terrorism
   Before we delve into the subject of America's prudent response to dealing with terrorism effectively, a short review of terrorism may help.
   Terrorism was widespread in Tsarist Russia from the mid-19th century to the beginning of the WWI, many of those crimes perpetrated by Ashkenazi Jews who overwhelmed various nihilist and communist organiyations. It involved thousands of violent attacks, including high level assassinations and dynamiting of buildings. Almost 7000 officials and politicians were its victims in Russia, including the Tsar Alexander II (in 1881). The assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, is another example of terrorism that sparked WWI.
   Almost all "terrorist" activities originate from a political conflict and have been seeded as well as sustained by it. That applies to the Bolsheviks in Imperial Russia, the IRA in Ireland, the ETA or the Basque separatists in Spain, the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) in Peru, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the FARC in Colombia, the CPP/NPA in the Philippines, the 17N or N17 and Revolutionary Nuclei in Greece, the Red Army Faction in West Germany and the Ghadar Party.
   In colonial British India was the Azad Hind Fauz (of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose); the RSS and the Naxalites in India, the Partai Nasional Indonesia in Dutch-ruled Indonesia; the Mau Mau rebels of Kenya, the Mukti Bahini in erstwhile East Pakistan (March - December, 1971), the African National Congress (of Nelson Mandela) in apartheid South Africa, the Tamil Liberation Tigers in Sri Lanka, the communists in Nepal, the Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, the Chechen rebels in Russia, the PKK in Turkey, the MEK in Iran; the PLF (of Abu Abbas), the PFLP and Abu Nidal Organization in the Occupied Territories of Palestine; the Irgun Zvai Leumi, Stern Gang and Lehi in Palestine (during the British Mandate of Palestine), the Kach and Kahane Chai in Israel, and to all other groups.
   As can be seen from the short list above, yesterday's "terrorist" can be today's "patriot", and even president and prime minister, something that happened to Zionists like Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon, Yitzhak Rabin and Yitzhak Shamir of Israel; Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Sukarno of Indonesia, Nelson Mandela and Mbeki of South Africa, and many others. Some of those groups were (and are) engaged in national liberation struggle of their country or people, while some others committed violent crimes against individuals.
   
   Shamir was terrorist
   In 1941 Yitzhak Shamir was imprisoned by British authorities for his terrorist activities in Palestine. After escaping from the detention camp, he became one of the three leaders of the gang in 1943, reforming it as "Lehi". During his tenure, Lehi was also responsible for the 1944 assassination of Britain's minister of state for the Middle East, Lord Moyne; an assassination attempt against Harold MacMichael, the High Commissioner of Palestine in the same year, and the 1948 assassination of the United Nations representative in the Middle East, Count Folke Bernadotte who was seen by Shamir and his collaborators as an anti-Zionist and "an obvious agent of the British enemy". Lehi also played a major role in the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre of some 254 unarmed Palestinians.
   And yet, Shamir argued that Lehi was never engaged in terrorism: "There are those who say that to kill Martin (a British sergeant) is terrorism, but to attack an army camp is guerrilla warfare and to bomb civilians is professional warfare. But I think it is the same from the moral point of view. Is it better to drop an atomic bomb on a city than to kill a handful of persons? I don't think so. And nobody says that President Truman was a terrorist. All the men we went for individually - Wilkin, Martin, MacMichael and others - were personally interested in succeeding in the fight against us. So it was more efficient and more moral to go for selected targets. In any case, it was the only way we could operate, because we were so small. For us it was not a question of the professional honour of a soldier, it was the question of an idea, an aim that had to be achieved. We were aiming at a political goal. There are many examples of what we did to be found in the Bible -Gideon and Sampson, for instance. This had an influence on our thinking. And we also learned from the history of other peoples who fought for their freedom - the Russian and Irish revolutionaries, Garibaldi and Tito."
   Shamir's argument is quite revealing in that he, like most "terrorists" of our time, did not consider those heinous acts as anything but revolutionary. It is here that the definition of terrorism gets blurred.
   Professor Igor Primoratz of the University of Melbourne says that many scholars have been reluctant to assign the word "terrorism" to activities that could be construed as "legitimate state aims". Primoratz himself defines terrorism as "the deliberate use of violence, or threat of its use, against innocent people...", and writes that his definition can be applied to both state and non-state activities.
   Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton, has a similar opinion and says that terrorism "should apply to violence deliberately targeting civilians, whether committed by state actors or their non-state enemies." Historian Howard Zinn writes: "If 'terrorism' has a useful meaning (and I believe it does, because it marks off an act as intolerable, since it involves the indiscriminate use of violence against human beings for some political purpose), then it applies exactly to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
   [To be continued]

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Rule of law in Afghanistan

Michael Nienhaus

Three distinct judicial systems are in force in Afghanistan: the official courts, the traditional jirgas and Islamic scholarship. The country's constitution stresses the importance of international standards such as the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while jirgas and religious leaders largely ignore them.
   News out of Afghanistan is usually bad, whether it is about the tenuous security situation or the unrelenting influence of warlords and drug barons. The Afghan government is still struggling to assert its authority, and it continues to lose legitimacy.
   Although there is positive news, it gets far less attention. Examples include the growing number of girls going to school, construction of hospitals and roads or the implementation of irrigation and drinking-water projects. Moreover, the Afghan people support such efforts by the international community, at least in the provinces in Afghanistan's northeast and north.
   One tough question remains, however: can the rule of law and the separation of powers be introduced in Afghanistan? The international community has made doing so a priority. But achieving these goals will not only depend on a judiciary that is independent and free of corruption. It is also crucial that every citizen be allowed access to the courts, regardless of their family background, gender or income. Moreover, the courts' jurisdiction will have to be recognised as binding. None of these conditions are met in Afghanistan yet.
   
   Conflict resolution
   Historically, Afghans hardly ever experienced an independent judiciary. While they are loyal to their families, village or their ethnic groups, Afghans are not loyal to the state. Therefore, Afghanistan can hardly be considered a single nation - even King Zahir Shah never controlled the entire country during his reign from 1933 to 1973.
   Civil and criminal cases are usually adjudicated by traditional means, regardless of where the case is being heard or which ethnic group is involved. Jirgas, as traditional councils of elders are called, decide 70 to 80 per cent of all cases. Sometimes, these councils seek the advice of religious leaders. On the other hand, even state courts sometimes refer cases to jirgas. Doing so may serve peace in the short term, but it also proves that Afghans remain deeply suspicious of the state-run judicial system. Indeed, the official judiciary is prone to let cases pending for many years. Furthermore, many people believe that it takes bribes to get favourable rulings from the judges.
   Traditional conflict resolution, however, has several drawbacks. One of them concerns women in rural areas. For two reasons, they frequently cannot invoke their rights:
   Many women do not know what their rights are, neither under the constitution nor under Islamic Sharia law.
   Women may only appear before jirgas in the company of men, so they cannot receive any direct legal assistance. The sole exception is in a few districts in Badakhshan Province, home to the Ismaelites.
   A further problem is that traditional conflict resolution is based upon customary law and Sharia law, both of which are often at odds with the Afghan constitution and its emphasis on the legally binding nature of the UN human rights charter. Members of jirgas tend to disregard these principles.
   For instance, child marriage is still common, though banned under the secular constitution. But as child marriage has been the norm so far in rural areas such as Kunduz Province, that area's spiritual leader, the Maulavi, considers the practice legally binding. He says that the people do so too, and that the tradition is therefore legitimate.
   Another widespread tradition is the practice of compensation, according to which a woman or a girl can be "handed over" to another family that has been the victim of a crime. If a man murders the member of another family, he may, for instance, be required to turn his sister over to that family as a kind of reparation for the crime. This practice obviously violates basic human rights and, accordingly, the constitution of the country. Nonetheless, such compensations still occur, and particularly so in regions with majority populations of Ismaelites, Pashtuns or Tajiks.
   Examples like these illustrate that customary and Sharia law can undermine the state's authority to mete out punishment. Many people, especially those living in rural areas, still neither trust state institutions, nor do they know much about them. Warlords and drug barons, who stack the jirgas with their followers so they can assert their interests in the event of land disputes, for instance, are particularly troublesome.
   It would be difficult to combine all three judicial systems. They are often in conflict, even though the constitution states that all rules, laws and provisions have to be consistent with Sharia law. But state judges and prosecutors have only limited knowledge, if any at all, of traditional and Islamic law in case they studied secular law.
   There are two ways to study law in Afghanistan. There are the Sharia universities that teach traditional and religious law, whereas secular law is taught at the "Faculties of Law and Political Sciences" at the universities (for instance in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif). Only recently did the government start to draft a unified law curriculum.
   It is quite difficult to find qualified lawyers in Afghanistan. There are some, but they usually work for international non-governmental organisations. These NGOs pay much higher salaries than the government. Judges earn only between $ 60 and $ 90 a month - whereas NGOs pay lawyers between $ 900 and $ 1,200 dollars a month. Organisations based in the USA frequently pay even more.
   There are far too few female lawyers in Afghanistan, and far too few female judges. Only three women justices work in the four northern provinces of Balgh, Kunduz, Tahar and Badakshan. Women, whom rural traditions already put at a disadvantage, suffer the consequences. Experience shows that women are rarely able to obtain a divorce from a jirga, even though Sharia law allows that to happen. But that law is nearly impossible to enforce; after all, women are not allowed to appear before a jirga on their own.
   
   Women's empowerment
   The greatest obstacle women face, however, is their lack of knowledge of the law. That is the starting point for many Afghan NGOs. They offer workshops to boost the level of women's education. Workshops that deal with topics like health, child rearing or sewing also tackle legal issues. Women need their husband's permission to take part in such events, and some even obtain permission from the local Mullah. NGOs often stage meetings with men in attempts to convince them of the workshops' importance. The Mullahs play a special role: they can use Friday prayers to disseminate the message.
   Afghanistan's Department of Women's Affairs has affiliated offices in all provincial capitals. This is where one does find women who are well versed in legal matters and who can provide advice to their fellow countrywomen. Sometimes, they assist women in the courtroom.
   Schools - and in particular girls' schools - are probably the most effective place to boost legal awareness. Several approaches for doing so have been developed. What matters now is that teachers become more aware of rule-of-law issues. NGOs are organising relevant workshops too. However, principals at girls' schools complain that they have had to obtain permission from both the fathers and the mullahs for the girls to attend relevant lessons.
   These are long-term suggestions on how to improve the legal situation for women in Afghanistan. Old-fashioned ways of thinking must be overcome - ways of thinking that are deeply entrenched and span several generations. But if Afghanistan is to develop a democratic legal system, then the country's people will have to develop a sense of justice.
   -SAN-Feature Service
   Michael Nienhaus is a lawyer and has advised German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), the government agency, in Afghanistan.

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Marshall opposed but Truman
recognised Israel

Richard Holbrooke

In the celebrations surrounding Israel's 60th anniversary, it should not be forgotten that there was an epic struggle in Washington over how to respond to the Israeli declaration of independence on May 14, 1948. It led to the most serious disagreement president Harry Truman ever had with his revered secretary of state, George Marshall - and with most of the foreign-policy establishment. The battle lines drawn then resonate still.
   The British had been mandated by the League of Nations to supervise the territory of Palestine since 1920, and planned to leave at midnight on May 14-15. At that moment, the Jewish Agency, led by David Ben-Gurion, would proclaim the new (and still unnamed) Jewish state. The neighbouring Arab states warned that fighting, which had already begun several months before, would erupt into full-scale war at that moment.
   The Jewish Agency proposed partitioning Palestine into two parts - one Jewish, one Arab (along the lines of a division endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly a few months earlier). But the U.S. departments of State and Defence backed the British plan to turn Palestine over to the United Nations.
   In March, Mr. Truman privately promised Chaim Weizmann, the future president of Israel, that he would support partition - only to learn the next day that his ambassador to the United Nations had voted for UN trusteeship. Enraged, the president wrote a private note on his calendar: "The State Dept. pulled the rug from under me today. The first I know about it is what I read in the newspapers! Isn't that hell? I'm now in the position of a liar and double-crosser. I've never felt so low in my life."
   Mr. Truman blamed "third and fourth level" State Department officials - especially the director of UN affairs, Dean Rusk, and the agency's counsellor, Charles Bohlen. But opposition really came from an even more formidable group: the "wise men" who were simultaneously creating the great Truman foreign policy of the late 1940s - among them Mr. Marshall, James Forrestal, George Kennan, Robert Lovett, John McCloy, Paul Nitze and Dean Acheson. To overrule the State Department would mean taking on Mr. Marshall, whom Mr. Truman regarded as "the greatest living American," a daunting task for a very unpopular president.
   Beneath the surface lay unspoken but real anti-Semitism on the part of some (but not all) policy-makers. The position of those opposing recognition was simple - oil, numbers and history. "There are 30 million Arabs on one side and about 600,000 Jews on the other," Mr. Forrestal, the defence secretary, told White House counsel Clark Clifford. "Why don't you face up to the realities?"
   On May 12, Mr. Truman held a meeting in the Oval Office to decide the issue. Mr. Marshall and his universally respected deputy, Robert Lovett, made the case for delaying recognition - and "delay" really meant "deny." The president asked Mr. Clifford to present the case for immediate recognition. When the young aide finished, Mr. Marshall uncharacteristically exploded. "I don't even know why Clifford is here. He is a domestic adviser, and this is a foreign-policy matter. The only reason Clifford is here is that he is pressing a political consideration."
   Marshall then uttered what Clifford would call "the most remarkable threat I ever heard anyone make directly to a president." In a top-secret memorandum that Marshall later wrote for the historical files, the great general recorded his own words: "I said bluntly that if the president were to follow Clifford's advice and if in the elections I were to vote, I would vote against the president."
   After this stunning moment, the meeting adjourned in disarray. In the next two days, Clifford looked for ways to get Marshall to accept recognition. Lovett, although still opposed to recognition, finally talked a reluctant Marshall into remaining silent if Mr. Truman acted. With only a few hours left until midnight in Tel Aviv, Clifford told the Jewish Agency to request immediate recognition of the new state, which still lacked a name. Mr. Truman announced recognition at 6:11 p.m. on May 14 - 11 minutes after Ben-Gurion's midnight declaration of independence in Tel Aviv.
   So rapidly was this done that in the official announcement, the typed words "Jewish State" are crossed out, replaced in Clifford's handwriting with "State of Israel." Thus the United States became the first country to recognise Israel, as Mr. Truman and Clifford wanted. The secret of the Oval Office confrontation held for years, and a crisis in both domestic politics and foreign policy was narrowly averted.
   Clifford insisted over the next 40 years that politics was not at the root of his position - moral conviction was. Noting sharp divisions within the American Jewish community - the substantial anti-Zionist faction among leading Jews included the publishers of both The Post and The New York Times - Clifford had told Mr. Truman in his famous 1947 presidential campaign blueprint that "a continued commitment to liberal political and economic policies" was the key to Jewish support.
   But to this day, many think that Marshall and Lovett were right on the merits and that domestic politics was the real reason for Mr. Truman's decision. Israel, they argue, has been nothing but trouble for the United States.
   I think this misses the point. Israel was going to come into existence whether or not Washington recognised it. But without U.S. support from the very beginning, Israel's survival would have been at even greater risk. Even if European Jewry had not just emerged from the horrors of the Second World War, it would have been an unthinkable act of abandonment by the United States. Truman's decision - although opposed by almost the entire foreign-policy establishment -- was the right one, despite complicated consequences that continue to this day.
   Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, co-authored Clark Clifford's Counsel to the President: A Memoir.

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Army chief Michel Soleiman elected new compromise president

Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal

The intense fight between the government and opposition in Lebanon seems to have come to an end with a compromise formula brokered by Arabs at Doha late last month. Parliament elected Lebanon's Army chief Michel Soleiman as an acceptable president.
   The Hezbollah-led opposition left a national unity coalition cabinet late in 2006, demanding more power and a veto over government decisions. The deadlock has stopped parliament from electing a new president for more than six months, creating an unstable power vacuum. Arab League mediators met both sides in Beirut in an effort to end the violence which left many people dead. Under a six-point plan, the rival parties agreed to go to Qatar to try to elect a president - Lebanon has had no president since November - and to form a national unity government.
   The Western-backed government and Hezbollah-led opposition agreed on May 21 to have the army chief as a compromise candidate as violence raised fears of civil war. Lebanon's parliament has elected army commander General Michel Suleiman as president, ending deadlock which has left the post vacant since November. Gen Suleiman called for "the beginning of a nation that is starting to wake up from self-destruction". It seems his powers are limited after recent Hezbollah gains. Many Lebanese are relieved to finally have a president.
   The deputy leader of the mainly Shia political and militant movement, Naim Qassam, told a news conference Hezbollah would return the situation in Lebanon back "to normal". Airport officials said the national carrier MEA would resume international flights to the airport soon. The Hezbollah opposition has pledged to return normality to Lebanon, a week after battles erupted between the movement and government supporters. The announcement comes a day after the government withdrew two key measures to curb Hezbollah that triggered clashes. The "militants" loyal to Hezbollah have since removed roadblocks on the route to Beirut's international airport.
   The camp set up by supporters of Hezbollah and its opposition allies occupied a sizable chunk of downtown Beirut. The razor-wire barricades set up by the army to protect the government building have also now been removed. For the smart shops and cafes of the reconstructed downtown district - which depend heavily on a climate of stability - it could not come too soon. These shopkeepers count heavily on an influx of rich Arab visitors from the Gulf during the summer months. They lost that two summers ago because of Hezbollah's war with Israel. Now, they're hoping at least, that this summer can be salvaged by the new agreement signed in Qatar, between the pro-West Lebanese Government and Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah reached to deescalate the crisis.
   
   The agreement
   According Doha Agreement, signed on 25 May, western-backed ruling majority to get 16 cabinet seats and choose prime minister, while Syrian-backed opposition to get 11 cabinet seats and veto power. President would nominate three cabinet seats. The use of weapons in internal conflicts is to be banned. Opposition protest camps in central Beirut are to be removed. A new law would be enacted to divide country into smaller electoral districts. Among 200 guests at the parliamentary vote were the Emir of Qatar, who helped mediate the Doha deal, as well as a US congressional delegation and the foreign ministers of Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. These outside powers have all been involved in the proxy struggle in Lebanon, but now seem to be coming together to give their blessing to the agreement.
   Under the agreement, the opposition gained the power of veto in a new cabinet of national unity - over which it had walked out of the previous cabinet 18 months ago. While the make-up of the government has been agreed, there will be much haggling over who gets which portfolio. Under the constitution, outgoing Prime Minister Fouad Siniora is expected to head a caretaker government until a new prime minister is appointed. The government in effect backed down, retracting demands like the head of airport security be moved from his job and Hezbollah's private phone system be shut down. The network is a key element of the Hezbollah's military capability and what it calls the "weapons of resistance" against Israel.
   The army chief, Gen Suleiman, who was standing unopposed, is widely seen as a trusted figure who has managed to maintain the army's neutrality among Lebanon's complex mix of factions. For months, Gen Suleiman had been accepted by all sides as the only candidate to succeed outgoing pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, but disagreements had repeatedly prevented a parliamentary vote to appoint him. His election does not mean the military is taking over - it is more a case of feuding politicians being unable to agree on a Maronite Christian, which the president has to be, who is acceptable to all.
   After he was sworn in, Gen Suleiman, in a speech seen as reaching out to both sides of Lebanon's political divide, said: "Let us unite... and work towards a solid reconciliation. We have paid dearly for our national unity. Let us preserve it hand-in-hand." Gen Suleiman said the country should co-operate with UN efforts to try suspects in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. But he also called for "brotherly ties" with Syria and a "national strategic stance" so that Lebanon could "benefit from the lessons of the resistance [Hezbollah] to serve the nation".
   Weeks ago the crisis flared into the worst violence the country has seen since the civil war in 1990. Many people died in clashes as Hezbollah fighters seized control of sections of Beirut in response to government attempts to outlaw the group's private telephone network and reassign Beirut airport's security chief, who is close to the opposition. The agreement signed in the Qatari capital Doha has brought about a perceptible easing of tensions on the ground.
   US President George W Bush welcomed Gen Suleiman's election and said he looked forward to an "era of political reconciliation". Bush said that he is confident that Lebanon has chosen a leader committed to protecting its sovereignty, extending the government's authority over all of Lebanon, and upholding Lebanon's international obligations under UN Security Council Resolutions.
   On 2005 February 14, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a car bomb explosion near the Saint George Bay in Beirut. Leaders of the March 14 Alliance accused Syria of the attack due to its extensive military and intelligence presence in Lebanon, and the public rift between Hariri and Damascus over the Syrian-backed constitutional amendment extending pro-Syrian President Lahoud's term in office.
   The Hariri assassination marked the beginning of a series of assassination attempts that led to the loss of many prominent Lebanese figures. It is claimed that the assassination may have been executed by the Israeli Mossad in an attempt to destabilize the country, though Israel denies any direct involvement in this. Hezbollah captured on July 12, 2006, two Israeli soldiers leading to a conflict, the 2006 war that caused widespread loss of life and damage to Lebanon's infrastructure from 21 July, 2006 until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect on 14 August, 2006, and the country's economy is still in the process of recovering.
   In October 2007, when Émile Lahoud finished his second term as President, the opposition conditioned its vote for a successor on a power-sharing deal, thus leaving the country without a president for over 6 months. On 09 May, 2008, Hezbollah and Amal militants, in an armed attack triggered by a government decision on Hezbollah's communications network, temporarily took over Western Beirut. The situation was described by the government as an attempted "coup".
   On May 21, 2008, all major Lebanese parties signed an accord to elect Michel Suleiman as President, to form a national unity government with 11 out of 30 seats for the opposition, thus enabling it to veto decisions, and to adopt a new electoral law, based on the 1960 law with amendments for the 3 Beirut constituencies. The deal was brokered by an Arab League delegation, headed by the Emir and Foreign Minister of Qatar and the Secretary General of the Arab League, after 5 days of intense negotiations in Doha. Michel Suleiman was officially elected President on Sunday May 25, 2008 in the presence of the Foreign Ministers of Syria and Iran as well as France and Saudi-Arabia.
   It was a huge relief for many Lebanese, and the world at large, to find themselves with a new president in Lebanon at last, after 19 failed attempts to elect a head of state. But Gen Suleiman comes into office with his wings somewhat clipped, after his army was humiliated by having to stand by while Hezbollah burned newspaper offices and nearly stirred up civil war in the violence which broke out two weeks ago. Like the Palestinians, the Lebanese could successfully face their external enemies only if they are united and face the danger together. Whether the usual Sunni-Shia divide or something else has triggered the trouble, the spiritual leadership in Lebanon has warned all sides against falling into the trap of sectarian discourse and called for dialogue among all parties.
   The Doha Agreement has largely been seen as a victory for Hezbollah in Arab world and beyond; the militia cum political party will be brought into the Government and provided a cabinet veto. Meanwhile, a discussion of the disposition of Hezbollah's weapons-a core issue for March 14th-is deferred. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa has described the Doha Agreement as a historic "reconciliation" but it is up to the Hezbollah and the government to prove if it is not a temporary truce-until the next round of fighting.

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Attitude of leaving out can't bring peace

Jehan Perera in Colombo

William Gladstone said, "We look to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then we will have the time of peace." If this statement had been made by a philosopher or religious personality it could be dismissed as just another well meaning and impractical utterance. But if it has been said by the head of government of the dominant world power of that time, it might need to be taken more seriously. William Gladstone who made this statement was Prime Minister of Great Britain in the second decade of the 20th century. At that time Britain was wracked by the Irish rebellion that eventually culminated in the establishment of the Irish Republic.
   Gladstone's statement was highlighted at the introductory presentation of the CIMA World Conference which was held in Colombo last week. The Sri Lankan division of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants needs to be congratulated for its efforts to promote knowledge of national peace building to its membership. It appears that the torch of business leadership and willingness to address the most traumatic national issue is being taken on by a new generation, of which CIMA president Aruna Fernando and Chairman of the Technical Committee Suthesh Balasubramanium were youthful representatives.
   William Gladstone is remembered for his championing of "Home Rule" as the solution to the Irish question. He was farsighted to see the solution to a conflict that continued for another eighty years without being resolved in its entirety. The Irish question was finally resolved with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 that laid down referendums, power sharing and the disarmament of armed groups as the three pillars to a lasting solution. It took nearly another ten years to implement the Good Friday Agreement in its true spirit. This alone shows how long and arduous are the processes that finally led to solving protracted ethnic conflicts.
   Although he was Prime Minister of Great Britain, William Gladstone could not take the rest of his government and the opposition with him in resolving the problem in Ireland. His concept of Home Rule, which entailed the devolution of powers to Ireland, proved too controversial and divisive at that time. The Irish poet W B Yeats in his Meditations in Time of Civil War wrote "We have fed the heart on fantasies, the heart's grown brutal from the fare, more substance in our enmities, than in our love..." Eventually Great Britain was partitioned and the separation of the Irish Republic took place. But the example set by William Gladstone was to prevail in coming generation of British leaders about the manner in which their internal conflicts had to be resolved.
   
   Bipartisan cooperation
   Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Tissa Vitarana, who also chairs the All Party Representatives Committee that is mandated by the President to find a political solution to the ethnic conflict was the main Sri Lankan presenter on peace building at the CIMA conference. He referred to the Good Friday agreement and to the role that bipartisan cooperation had taken place in the United Kingdom in facilitating the political solution. There have been many vain attempts to obtain such bipartisanship in Sri Lanka, including one attempt which was facilitated by the British government in the late 1990s, but they all came to naught due to intense partisan rivalry and mistrust.
   If one may paraphrase Gladstone, the "Power of Love" is to include those perceived to be opponents and enemies and not to exclude them. By mistrusting and refusing to negotiate on Home Rule, the British government effectively excluded the Irish nationalists. This eventually led to complete separation. Learning the lesson from the past, in the 1990s, the British government faced the challenge of rising nationalism in Scotland and Wales in a positive manner, and actively facilitated the establishment of autonomous and devolved units within the framework of a unified United Kingdom.
   Unfortunately, the Sri Lankan experience of conflict resolution is full of examples of mistrust and exclusion. There are hardly any examples of comprehensive inclusion as yet. In 1997, the government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga produced a draft constitution that was much superior to the existing one in terms of power sharing and the protection of human rights. But it was formulated as a tool to win over the Tamil people and to isolate the LTTE. In addition, the government was not able to allay the mistrust of the opposition that the President's intention was to lengthen her tenure in office.
   Another missed opportunity came soon after the election of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He was able to reach agreement with the main opposition party led by former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and obtained an assurance of its bipartisan support to a political solution to the ethnic conflict. But shortly after the agreement was signed the President became party to the breakaway of a substantial number of Parliamentarians from the opposition in contravention of the letter and spirit of the agreement. Inevitably, this act of political bad faith, which reflected the "Love of Power" to use Gladstone's term, has eroded trust and possibility of bipartisan government-opposition cooperation in the national interest.
   
   Hopeful message
   The organizers of the CIMA World Conference spared no effort or expense to make the session on peace building a success. Two of the scheduled speakers, Nobel Prize winner, John Hume who led the largest Northern Irish political party and Professor Kader Asmal, who was a Minister in the South African government of President Nelson Mandela, failed to make it to Sri Lanka at the last moment. But they were able to make live presentations from their offices in Northern Ireland and South Africa and answer questions due to an interactive video hook up that connected them to the audience in Colombo.
   What came out of the three presentations was that conflicts that had lasted for even longer than the one in Sri Lanka, and which had been even more intense and hate-filled, could be resolved rationally and peacefully, if there was a combination of commitment, leadership and courage to include all major parties and population groups in the peace process. In both the Northern Ireland and South African cases the political leadership had demonstrated these qualities
   Unfortunately, at the present time, Sri Lanka is going on a journey that is in the opposite direction to that of Northern Ireland and South Africa. The government strategy of conflict resolution relies primarily on fighting militarily against the LTTE and defeating them. The war against the LTTE, and its enormous costs, are being justified on the basis that the LTTE is unprepared to enter into negotiations in which a political solution and disarmament are the goals. There is validity in this observation, but it is only part of the truth.
   Currently there are two political initiatives of the government that have the potential to be pillars of a peace process. One is the more complete implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution that the government has put forward through the All Party Conference process as being an interim solution. The government's success in bringing in the TMVP, the breakaway eastern faction of the LTTE, into the Eastern Provincial Council set up under the 13th Amendment is an important first step. The next steps will be to devolve sufficient powers and resources to make the Provincial Council system work effectively, at least in the east.
   The second governmental initiative has been its invitation to the TMVP to join the APRC and work with the other political parties to arrive at a political package for a longer term solution to the ethnic conflict. The government also needs to consider inviting the TNA, which is by far the largest Tamil political party in Parliament, to join the process.

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Jonaid Iqbal

Here is a story describing two horror interviews. The first interview was given to John Traub of the New York Times by Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan (BAA), President, Supreme Court Bar Association.
   The interview was taken many months ago, during travels of Aitzaz Ahsan, who hopped from one place to another, during his nine-month long crusade to restore all the 60 judges, including former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry who was disrobed on November 3, 2007, following the Provisional Constitutional Order slapped in the country by then Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
   The Gen. Musharraf himself admitted later that the measure was 'extra constitutional'.
   In the NYT interview BAA accused Pakistan People's Party co-Chairman Asif Zardari (AZ) of dragging his feet on the already agreed formula for the reinstatement of judges through an executive order presented in the National Assembly.
   
   PPP's tardiness
   Every one is aware now that AZ is taking long time to fulfill his commitment made in the Declaration at Muree where he pledged support to Pakistan Muslim League chief, Nawaz Sharif (NS).
   Instead, AZ has prepared a constitutional package to amend the Pakistan Constitution, which has gone through several PPP committees. Two days ago its draft was resting with a joint committee of PPP and PML-N members.
   AZ is now taking flak for the delay, including some from his own party members.
   Aitzaz, a PPP member, is aware of his co-chairperson's lukewarm attitude, and in a rear guard action, he decided against fighting a National Assembly constituency bye-election, in view of the PPP tardiness in endorsing BAA as its own candidate.
   The interview has been prominently reproduced on front pages of almost all news papers. Three days ago, BAA was reported to have said some unpleasant things including about his slain leader Benazir Bhutto and her widower (AZ), including slapping graft charges on them, and their lifestyle as well as expenses was not commensurate with their income. (This is nonsense, because according to a Sindhi gentleman who I talked to, AZ had miles and miles of landed property, even before he became a government minister.)
   An influential columnist, Anjum Niaz has commented that BAA had opened his wounded heart out to the NYT correspondent.
   
   Kiyani's disclosure
   The second interview is from former Commander of 110 Brigade, the one that implemented the army intervention on October 12, 1999, when the military decided to oust NS's constitutional government.
   Gen (retd) Kiyani has served as the Chairman of Federal Services Commission, a post in which he was installed by his former friend Gen. Musharraf. Later Kiyani fell out with his COAS Musharraf and was relieved of the job before completing the five-year term of this position.
   It is not only Kiayani who has been doing harsh talking against the former General (now President). More than two dozen former senior military officers are now pressing that the President must vacate the Army House, where he is staying after quitting his military post.
   In the [TV] interview this former friend has been saying many uncomfortable things, as well as visiting his former boss's performance in the Kargil fiasco against India, and that to rescue the military from further embarrassment. NS, then prime minister, had to rush to Washington, to settle terms with US President Clinton, and gain concessions from the Indian side.
   National Assembly on Tuesday went to town based on this TV interview and many Members demanded enquiry against the President and that he should be tried for treason. NS repeated the charges, the same day, before proceeding to London.
   A presidential aide, Gen. Rashed Qureshi, has dismissed Gulzar Kayani's tirade as childish patter.
   However, a number of reports have been floating about President Musharraf sending SOS to some of his friends, including former Information Minister, Nisar Memon to help him out through this difficulty.
   Former Minister Shaikh Rashid has also formed a new political party and has vowed to defend Musharraf.
   It would take much more than sporadic efforts to save him from the ever mounting public pressure that President Musharraf must quit the Presidency.
   AZ would be willing if President Musharraf were to walk out of the Presidency but his coalition partner NS is hell bent on pressing treason charges.

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