Sick railway needs urgent attention

Mohammad Ali Sattar

That the railway is sick and has been suffering for a long time now is a fact known to all. The unsettling news that the 2000 kilometers of the 2835km railway network are in appalling shape is a matter of great worry. We have been watching with consternation that this sector has been time and again disregarded. No government took any interest, whatsoever, to turn things around. No private initiative either came to bring about a change in state of things.
   Although our road communications has improved, we still have a long a way to cover to get to the satisfactory level. The importance of this means of communication cannot be downplayed. Railway runs on risky old tracks and the very condition of the rail cars are in a sorry state. One feels bad to board a train, especially if it is a local carrier, because of the stinking air and unhealthy situation inside the carriage.
   You could add more to the misery of the sector. The physical condition apart, the poor and inefficient handling of the signaling system and poor show of the duty personnel at the stations are still more pathetic. It clearly shows the chronic ailment this sector is suffering from.
   According to statistics, we have more than 650 level crossings all over the country. The level crossings in the rural and semi urban areas are precariously handled by underpaid, untrained and irresponsible signalmen at these points.
   When the world is using 'bullet trains' on the surface and 'tube rails' underground we are still at the thinking stage for 'modernising' our railway. The modernisation of the railway is not an easy task, it needs adequate funding.
   A strong and efficient railway is imperative for a strong economy. The transportation of people and goods are equally important to keep the wheels of progress moving. The railway can be more effective than any other means of transport.
   A few new trains have been introduced on certain routes with relative comfort to the commuters. As said earlier, makeshift arrangements or costly comforts for the rich is not the sector needs. The whole railway needs to be overhauled touching each area to bring up a clean and efficient mode of transport which carries a considerable number of commuters in the country.
   We ought to have a realistic plan for at least 20 years. The government should come up with development proposals and find partners. We have found partners in many projects in the communications sector. These were mostly limited to construction of bridges and carpeting of roads. The specific railway development project should be taken up with state-of- the-art technology. We can have a modern railway only if we take things in right earnest. This will turn our economy around in no time.

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Do we ever learn from history?

Nasrine R. Karim

"The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, and incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster. Our unfortunate troops, Indian and British, under hard conditions of climate and supply are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the wilfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad but the responsibility, in this case, is not on the army which has acted only upon the request of the civil authorities." - T.E. Lawrence, August 1920 - The Sunday Times, London.
   
   Learning from history
   Falluja is a small city on one of the bends of the Euphrates, which spreads into the great Syrian Desert. It's on an ancient trade route linking the oasis towns of the Nejd province of Saudi Arabia with the cities of Aleppo and Mosul to the north. It also is on the desert highway between Baghdad and Amman. This city is on a crossroad.
   For centuries, Arabs have used this city as a seaport on that great desert that binds together Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Jordan. Historically, the inhabitants of the city are linked through tribe, family or marriage.
   Most importantly, the doctrines of Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab-took root in this city and out of the eastern part of Saudi Arabia in the late 18th Century, which today we call fundamentalist "Salafi", or "Wahhabism". This has been well implanted here for ten generations. Falluja is also the place, where in the spring of 1920, before T. E. Lawrence wrote the above passage, the British had discerned civil unrest.
   The United States has been a major power in the Middle East since 1933. American consortium of oil companies had signed an exploration deal with Saudi Arabia. In 1942, The United States reiterated its dominance in the Middle East, when American troops first landed in North Africa and Iran. In fact, American troops have been in the region since. They have been in different parts of the Middle East for 62 years!
   At the time of the Invasion of Iraq by the Bush government, experts predicted that it would be difficult to occupy a vast, complex country like Iraq, that serious resistance from a major part of the population was likely, and that the invasion and occupation would complicate U.S. relations with other countries in the region. It is clear today that all of these fears were well founded.
   An estimated 168,000 civilian casualties have been reported. Even worse are the wrongdoings that are apparently perpetrated in the name of "War on Terror". U.S. soldiers had raided the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad during Friday prayers, killing at least four and wounding up to 20 worshippers. An eyewitness Abu Talat reported to IPS: "Everyone was there for Friday prayers, when five Humvees and several trucks carrying INGs entered," Abu Talat told IPS on phone from within the mosque while the raid was in progress. "Everyone starting yelling 'Allahu Akbar' (God is the greatest) because they were frightened. Then the soldiers started shooting! Women and children were sobbing."
   Remember how Red Crescent efforts to assist civilians in the besieged city of Falluja were also frustrated by military operations. Humanitarian relief inside Falluja and in nearby villages had been impeded by the incessant violence, as US and Iraqi forces wrapped up the largest post-war military operation in Iraq.
   In the turn of the last century, the British sent a renowned explorer to quell unrest into what is known as Falluja now. He was a senior colonial officer, Lt. Col. Gerald Leachman. His reputation as an expert in administering and suppressing unrest within the British Empire preceded him when he was sent to master this unruly corner of Iraq. Leachman, however, was killed in an altercation with a local leader named Shaykh Dhari. His death sparked a war that ended up with the loss of 10,000 Iraqis and more than 1,000 British and Indian troops. To restore control, the British were obliged to use massive air power and general bombing. This is the same city that the US is trying to vanquish now.
   Ironically, Shaykh Dhari's grandson, today a prominent Iraqi cleric, helped to broker the end of the U.S. Marine's notorious siege of Fallujah. Fallujah is an integral part of tribal, religious and national history of Iraq. The city is in rubbles and most of its history has been mutilated. Over half of its mosques have been destroyed.
   Violence, surges throughout central and northern Iraq as tenacious insurgency led by Sunni Arabs relentlessly assaulting strings of major cities, from Ramadi to Falluja to Baghdad. In Mosul, Iraq's third largest city and 225 miles north of Baghdad, four headless bodies were discovered. Groups of guerrillas stormed a half- dozen police stations there and made off with weapons and uniforms after setting fire to the buildings and squad cars. Only 800 of the city's 4,000 police officers stayed on the job. People are so frightened!
   Ambushes and car bombs are every-day affairs killing scores and maiming hundreds.
   But why was Iraq invaded? The Baath regime (which the U.S. helped come to power in 1963 by assisting it's coup against a previous Iraqi government) was no longer serving U.S. as the compliant vassal to its political or economic interests in the region. The Baath's eventual leader, Saddam Hussein - like other U.S. protégés before him i.e. Ngo Dinh Diem in Viet Nam, Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines, Manuel Noreiga in Panama and Shah in Iran, developed illusions of autonomy and began to pursue policies inimical to the visions of Washington.
   In seeking to expand his role as a grand Arab leader free of U.S. constraints, Saddam Hussein "crossed the line". His crimes, which had been ignored earlier, were given wide airplay to shift public opinion against him. When he was seen as an US agent, those crimes were conveniently ignored.
   During the Iraqi invasion, the world was introduced to another US favourite: Ahmed Chalabi. He was routinely presented in the US media as a legitimate representative and spokesman for the Iraqi people. The convicted fraudster Ahmed Chalabi, was one of the nine rotating Presidents on the so-called Iraqi Governing Council. Inside Iraq, as well as throughout the Arab world, Chalabi is regarded as an opportunist and a fraudulent thief. His position is so compromised in the region that even the US Central Intelligence Agency and State Department was later obliged to regard him as a liability.
   The Sunni Arabs, who make up a fifth of the population here, ruled the region known as modern Iraq for centuries, until the American invasion toppled them from power. The majority Shiites seized the unchecked window and turned into a factor that is giving the US heartburns as this community that have direct relations with the other agent of Bush's "axis of evil" - Iran.
   Then there are the Kurds who want their independence to take with them the largest slice of the pie - the oil....
   Frankly, the Iraqi people are trapped in a nightmare with no apparent end. It is quite apparent that it is impossible to impose democracy by force in Iraq. In fact, it is impossible to impose anything by force anywhere - the most important thing is the human factor. That was forgotten and today, Mesopotamia burns!
   Peace in the Middle East?
   "Hanooz, Dilli Door Ast!"-
   (It is a long way to Delhi)
   Khwaja Nizamuddin Awlia, (RA) on Ghiasuddin Tughlak's arrogance on trying to conquer the capital. Ghiasuddin dropped dead before he reached his goal.

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