Iran's President Blames West For 'All' Region's Problems

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has lashed out against foreign interference in the region, saying outsiders are responsible for "all the problems" there.

He was speaking at a joint press conference in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, following summit talks on February 17 with his Pakistani and Afghan counterparts, Asif Ali Zardari and Hamid Karzai.

"There is no fundamental problem among countries of the region. All problems are coming from the outside," Ahmadinejad said.
"In order to promote their goals and ambitions, [the West] always seeks to promote division among all countries of the region."
Ahmadinejad said foreign powers "don't want to allow our nations to develop."

He didn't identify which outside powers he was referring to.

Ahmadinejad called for countries in the region to "stick together in order to advance and achieve our goals."

Karzai Calls For Action

Ahmadinejad's comments come with Afghan and Pakistani officials publicly calling for cooperation to help achieve a settlement with the Afghan Taliban and end the war in Afghanistan between Afghan and NATO-backed forces and the Islamic militia.

Karzai said that what he called "impediments" in relations between Kabul and Islamabad must sooner, rather than later, be removed so that progress can be made in peace talks to end the war, now in its 11th year.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who has publicly backed making progress in Afghanistan peace efforts, on February 17 denied allegations that Pakistani armed forces were "directly or indirectly involved" in the conflict on the side of the Taliban.
The Afghan Taliban has rejected recent claims by Karzai that the U.S. and Afghan governments have begun talks with the militants about a settlement.
The Iranian president's remarks also come as Iran has been dealing with tightened international sanctions, including an oil embargo by the European Union that Western states and the United Nations Security Council have imposed over the Iranian nuclear program.
Despite such sanctions, Iran announced a series of advancements in its nuclear program on February 15.
Iran said it had used domestically made nuclear fuel in a research reactor in Tehran for the first time and also unveiled a "new generation" of faster, more efficient uranium-enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz facility in central Iran.

Meanwhile, in a letter dated February 14, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Said Jalili, told world powers that Tehran was ready to resume stalled nuclear talks at the "earliest" opportunity.

But the letter sent to European Union chief diplomat Catherine Ashton, who represents the United States, France, Britain, Germany, China, and Russia in the talks, was vague on whether Tehran was ready to address international concerns over its nuclear program.
Ashton in October said in a letter that the powers could meet with Iran if it was ready to tackle those concerns.

Western powers suspect that Iran is seeking to build a nuclear bomb, a charge Iran denies.

Trilateral summit in Islamabad from today

Pakistan to host Afghan, Iranian leaders

Pakistan on Thursday welcomes the leaders of Afghanistan and Iran for a regional summit at a key juncture in peace efforts with the Taliban and amid rising tensions between Tehran and Israel. 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Islamabad mid-morning, the Pakistani foreign ministry confirmed, for a series of talks with government and opposition figures on his second visit to the country in nine months.

Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was expected to arrive in the afternoon before formal summit talks on Friday, followed by a news conference.

Pakistan, the historic ally of the Taliban, says it will do anything required by Kabul to support an Afghan-led peace process, but there is a wide degree of skepticism in Afghanistan and the United States about its sincerity.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar visited Kabul this month on a fence-mending visit amid reports that Kabul and Islamabad felt isolated by contacts between the United States and the Taliban in the Gulf state of Qatar.

But in an interview published in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Karzai said the Afghan government was part of three-way peace efforts.

The Taliban have refused to talk to Karzai’s U.S.-backed government.

“There have been contacts between the U.S. government and the Taliban, there have been contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and there have been some contacts that we have made, all of us together, including the Taliban,” Karzai was quoted as saying.

He did not mention any Pakistani involvement, but said cooperation from Islamabad “would make the whole matter easier”.

Pakistan says the trilateral summit will focus on cooperation on counter-terrorism and transnational organized crime including drug and human trafficking, border management and trade issues.

Islamabad is moving towards a detente in its own relations with Washington, which took a drastic turn for the worse over last year’s covert American raid that killed Osama bin Laden and air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

But despite strong U.S. objections, Pakistan says it is pressing ahead with a multi-billion-dollar project to build a gas pipeline to import fuel from Iran.

“There is no change or shift regarding the gas pipeline project and it is scheduled to be completed by 2014,” said the official.

Israel this week accused Iran of targeting its diplomats in Georgia, India and Thailand, against a backdrop of speculation that the Jewish state or the United States could be months from launching military strikes against Iran.

On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad unveiled new strides in Tehran’s nuclear program in a defiant blow to U.S. and EU sanctions designed to rein in its atomic activities.

“I don’t think so,” a senior Pakistani government official told AFP when asked if mounting tensions between Iran and Israel, and the showdown over Iran’s nuclear program, would dominate the summit.

Lack of vision, blighted business plan pulls PIA down

PIA seeks state bail out to survive

Ailing state carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is asking the government, saddled with its own mounting debt, to write off losses of 1.7 billion dollars to save it from looming bankruptcy.


In a five-year survival plan submitted to the government, PIA has promised to make cutbacks and better its fleet in a bid to improve its fortunes, if the treasury agrees to cancel its debt and pay off other creditors.


Blaming “bad policies of the past” for accumulated losses of 80 billion rupees (936 million dollars) and liabilities of 144 billion rupees, PIA spokesman Sultan Hassan insisted the airline is capable of future success.


Defending the company against long-standing allegations of graft and staffing problems, he told AFP that operational profits show PIA can become self reliant. “We want to reform the airline. If the government helps us by taking on our previous losses and loans so that we can invest capital, we will be able to revamp the company for the future,” said Hassan.


But the burden would be a massive undertaking for a government dependent on US aid to survive.
“I don’t think it is viable,” said an international finance official in Islamabad on condition of anonymity.
“The Pakistani economy is already weak, the government is under billions of dollars in debt — if they accept PIA’s request to pay off their loans it would be an additional burden.”


A former financial adviser to the government, Ashfaq Hassan, said privatisation was the only long term solution for the airline, which has failed to turn a net profit since 2004 according to its last annual report.
“This is a plan that the Ministry of Finance should never accept. It would leave a huge impact on the national budget,” said Hassan, now dean of Islamabad’s National University of Sciences and Technology.


“If the government injects any money into PIA it would only help it to survive for another year and nothing more. The only solution for this corporation is privatization. Anything else is a waste of time and money.”
PIA was created out of private airline Orient Airways in 1955, just eight years after Pakistan came into existence, and today has a fleet of 40 planes, a combination of Boeing 747s, 777s, 737s, Airbuses and ATR aircraft.
Performing well until the 1970s when corruption and overstaffing hit company fortunes, PIA’s reputation was further battered in the 1980s as it failed to maintain its fleet, said economic expert Shahidur Rehman.
He said 1990 signalled further defeat for PIA, when legislation liberalised to allow more competition in the flight market. The state carrier remains the largest operator on Pakistan’s international and domestic routes. But union officials say years of corruption, nepotism, bad management and poor planning have pushed the corporation to its lowest ebb.


“Every PIA contract is awarded against kick-backs and commission to the relevant authorities. This is employees’ money being looted by corrupt officials,” said Ashraf Bilo, a PIA union leader. Relations between PIA management and its more than 18,000 employees in Pakistan and its global offices are in disarray.
“Merit has always been ignored,” said Bilo. Bilo said PIA’s 500 pilots each earn around 500,000 rupees (6,000 dollars) per month and can claim a pension of 4,000 rupees a month after 15 years of service — huge sums in Pakistan.


But the airline recently imposed new rules to force pilots to fly on its terms, after a row over working hours and pension benefits led pilots to adopt an unofficial “go slow” protest leading to flight delays, said spokesman Hassan.


Pilots said they were routinely forced to fly 12 hours per day, two hours more than the civil aviation rules allow, and occasionally for as long as 18 hours.


This “is impossible and a serious violation of airline safety conduct,” said PIA pilot Sohail Balouch, also the spokesman for Pakistan Airlines Pilots Association. “The management is unwilling to solve this crisis.”

Can Pakistan's state airline fly through tough times?

PIA, like Pakistan, always seems to be on the brink of disaster. But now that seems closer than ever for the national flag carrier, once a source of pride for the country.


 The airline is hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars a year while being pummeled by competition from sleek Gulf giants like Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways.
A quarter of its 40 aircraft are grounded because the airline can't find enough money to buy spare parts. Flights are regularly cancelled and engineers say they are having to cannibalise some planes to keep others flying.
"The situation has worsened to the extent of rendering this airline almost financially unviable," said the State Bank of Pakistan in a report on the state of the economy.


In many ways the airline mirrors the way Pakistan -- a strategic U.S. ally often described as a failing state -- is run.


The same inefficiency, nepotism and corruption that critics say have prevented the government from tackling a Taliban insurgency, crippling power cuts, ethnic violence and widespread poverty also threaten to bring down the airline.PIA lost 19.29 billion rupees ($212.7 million) in the first nine months of 2011, almost double the losses in the same period in 2010.


The airline, like the Pakistani economy, has relied on bailouts to stay in the air, and is negotiating with the state for another rescue package."Just like PIA has the potential to do well, Pakistan's economy does too. But both haven't because of mismanagement. In the end that is the story -- mismanagement," Salman Shah, a former Pakistani finance minister, told Reuters.


PIA officials declined to comment on the challenges facing the airline.


HUGE WORKFORCE WEIGHS DOWN AIRLINE


Over the years, critics say, governments have manipulated state corporations like PIA for political and financial gain, giving jobs to so many supporters that the size of the workforce has become unsustainable in the face of mounting losses.
"We don't have people in the right places in typical Pakistani fashion. It's about who you know not what you can do," said a PIA pilot, who like other employees asked not to be identified for fear of being fired.


Today, PIA has a staggering employee to aircraft ratio of more than 450, more than twice as much as some competitors. In the first nine months of 2011, employee expenses drained 16 percent of turnover."Politically motivated inductions have been the major cause of the significant increase in human resource burden in this organisation," said the central bank.


"It cannot be corrected without taking drastic steps for rightsizing and increasing operational efficiency."That is unlikely in a country where political expediency and interests often undermine efforts to make everything from governments to corporations successful.


Frustrations with those realities are palpable at PIA.


Employees accuse supervisors of looking for kickbacks instead of trying to save the company. Some contracts are signed with companies for equipment they don't even possess.


"Management's concern is not with what planes and parts are good for the airline but what is good for them," said a senior PIA engineer.


Things were not always so gloomy. PIA used to be considered one of Asia's elite, a model for other airlines, the first on the continent to offer a jet service.These days, flight cancellations and technical glitches are regularly reported on cable news channels, with irate passengers calling with a long list of complaints.


It has become the butt of jokes on television comedy shows. In one sketch, a young man grows old at the airport waiting for a PIA flight to arrive with his relatives.


Pakistani television channel Geo News reported that the captain of an overbooked domestic flight accommodated two passengers by making them travel in his aircraft's toilets.A PIA spokesman denied the report.


"I wouldn't fly on PIA even if they gave me free tickets," said businessman Younis Ibrahim, 40, who regularly flies from Pakistan's commercial hub Karachi to Oman on Emirates.
"They are never on time."


Others have more serious concerns about the airline.


Just before takeoff, one PIA aircraft had to abort because smoke started to rise in the cabin.
"There was a strange smell. We immediately told the crew and they had to put us on another plane," said passenger Haroon Ali.


With little financial muscle, PIA has few chances of improving its services and many of its best pilots and engineers are joining competing airlines."People that PIA invested in decades in are leaving. This is what happens when you don't have a culture of merit," said a PIA engineer at Karachi airport.


Demoralised pilots and engineers say the airline desperately needs to replace its ageing fleet.
The European Union banned PIA from flying to the bloc for eight months in 2007 because of concern about maintenance and the age of some aircraft. The ban was lifted after PIA addressed the concerns.The chances of purchasing new aircraft are slim given PIA's financial predicament.


"You can't fly an airline like this," said a senior PIA pilot. "You can run it into the ground, but you can't fly it."

Afghan women TV presenters told ‘more veil, less make-up

Afghanistan has instructed women TV presenters to stop appearing without a headscarf and to wear less make-up, officials said, raising fears about creeping restrictions on the fledgling media.All the TV networks are in seriousness asked to stop women presenters from appearing on TV without a veil and with dense make-up,” the information and culture ministry said. “All women newscasters on Afghan TV channels are also asked to respect Islamic and Afghan values,” it added.


A spokesperson for President Hamid Karzai told AFP on Tuesday that the ministry took the decision after coming under pressure from the Ulema council, the country’s highest religious body of Islamic scholars.Afghan media, essentially non-existent under the 1996 to 2001 Taliban regime, have enjoyed considerable freedom, with more than two dozen TV stations springing up in the decade since the 2001 US-led invasion.

As tentative steps are made towards peace talks between the  United States and Taliban insurgents, Afghan women are worried about a possible return of the hardline Islamists to the capital Kabul.

Under the Taliban regime, women were subjected to brutal repression. Girls' schools were closed down, and women were not allowed to work.

They were whipped in the street by religious police if they wore anything other than the all-enveloping blue or white burqa.

MFN status, lost in translation

In such an atmosphere, India-Pakistan relations are bound to be a bit of a side-show — except when Hafiz Saeed, the infamous chief of the even more infamous Jamat-ud-dawa, the front of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, now banded together with 40 other like-minded groups and individuals as the Difa-e-Pakistan (Defence of Pakistan) Council, decides to bring it centre stage. This gig is travelling from city to city, stirring up passion against Pakistan's decision to accord India MFN status among other things; it is headed to Karachi on February 12. The rallies are still restricted to a madrasa type audience, but the message that there can be no normalising of trade with India has found wide acceptance.

Apparently, the main weapon in Hafiz Saeed's armoury is nothing more than the Urdu translation of Most Favoured Nation. In a nation that has over six decades internalised the term dushman hamsaya (enemy neighbour), the Pakistan government and business lobbies, who are all for cross-border trade, find themselves on the backfoot while discussing giving this same neighbour the status of “sabsey pasandeeda mulk.” Ignorance about MFN is widespread, shockingly even among friends of India. No one knows exactly what it is, except what they understand from the translation. At the “Track 2” meeting, one of the Pakistani delegates made an impassioned plea for replacing MFN with some other term that would mean the same thing but wouldn't sound as if Pakistan and India had become BFF, best friends forever.

Trade ties with India

The Gilani government is better-placed than the Musharraf regime to grant the MFN status to India. The Chambers of Commerce and Industry are united in their approval and most of the leaders in the industrial sector actually think India’s market is the next plausible target for them after the virtual destruction of the Pakistani market by terrorism. India gave Pakistan the MFN status in 1996; Pakistan is still dithering in 2012. The latter is also facing economic collapse because of its internal disorder and an unleashing of jihadi forces which the state can hardly control. Meanwhile, Indo-Palk trade languishes at $2.7 billion and ‘informal trade’ is touching $10 billion, all to the disadvantage of Pakistan’s exchequer.

The Indian side is understandably keen. It wants to open another trading point at Munabao-Khokhrapar on the Sindh-Rajasthan border, to prevent the concealed non-tariff barrier of a single inlet at the Lahore border. The Commerce Ministry in Islamabad was no less keen last year, as was apparent from its enthusiastic statements but come February, a lot of cold water has been poured over this enthusiasm by developments inside Pakistan. The layman is not able to grasp why the MFN is being given to ‘enemy’ India. Why call it the enemy? Because the media is bombarding his ears with how India is not yielding on Kashmir, is stopping Pakistan’s water through illegally built upriver dams, interfering in Balochistan and cooperating with the US and Israel to snatch Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal?

Warlike revisionist Pakistan doesn’t properly comprehend the importance of trade in the resolution of deadlocked disputes. Television anchors refer to India’s stubborn resolve not to discuss bilateral disputes and look at the MFN issue as a leverage that should highlight the ‘disputes first’ approach the world learned to set aside a long time ago. The Indian side is obviously less bothered about Pakistan — which it should have been because of the Mumbai attack — and has removed its objection to European Union’s decision to allow concessional trade in 75 Pakistani commodities. Of course, the Indian experts know that Pakistan has the right to protect itself against India’s dominant economy through the negative list and by insisting on the removal of all kinds of non-tariff barriers mounted by India unfairly against its imports.

The Pakistan Army had once expressed its ‘no objection’ to free trade with India. It needs to make another statement on this matter so that the jihadis gathered under the banner of DPC may quieten down a little, given the fact that ex-ISI bosses — one gathering in Peshawar organised by ex-Jamaat chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmad featured Generals (retd) Hamid Gul and Asad Durrani — attend its rallies.

Pakistan's judiciary faces criticism for ‘overreach'

AFP NOT A KISSING MATTER: There is debate in Pakistan over what is perceived as the “supremacist” role of the judiciary. In this March 2009 photo, lawyers greet the Chief Justice after his reinstatement.

The superior judiciary's seeming convergence with the anti-government sentiments in the establishment and media has sparked unease.

One photograph that many a Pakistani newspaper had on Thursday morning was of lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan driving the Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to court during the lawyers' movement for restoration of the higher judiciary.

Once iconic, that photograph is now ironic. Mr. Ahsan was the Chief Justice's counsel when he legally fought his removal by the military ruler Pervez Musharraf. After the Supreme Court reinstated Mr. Chaudhry, the much feted Mr. Ahsan vowed he would never appear before his former client.

After nearly three years, that pledge stands withdrawn. On Thursday, he appeared before Mr. Chaudhry to contest the apex court's decision to charge his current high profile client, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, with contempt of court for repeatedly refusing to write to Swiss authorities asking for reopening corruption cases against President Asif Ali Zardari.
On the drama-craving television channels, Mr. Ahsan's appearance before the CJP seemed to have overshadowed the appeal he filed on the Premier's behalf. But his decision also pointed to how perceptions about the Supreme Court have changed from 2007, when it could do no wrong, to the present times, when some of its decisions are being openly questioned by its staunchest supporters during the Musharraf days, including in the legal community.
The petition that Mr. Ahsan filed — and which the Supreme Court rejected; Mr. Gilani has to appear in court on February 13 — too referred to the lawyers' movement, pointing out that it would be ironic to imprison a democratically elected Prime Minister who had released the judges detained by the Musharraf regime while no action was taken against those who sacked the superior judiciary in 2007.
Mr. Ahsan is not the only one to express unease over the trajectory that the superior judiciary has taken. Many others are concerned too that it seems to converge with the anti-government sentiments in the establishment and the media.

Unhappy with the court's verdict in the ‘memogate' case, Asma Jehangir risked being hauled up for contempt by the Supreme Court to ask if “this is the judiciary of the people or judiciary of the establishment”.

Another leader of the lawyers' movement and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, Muneer Malik, has questioned the judiciary's decision to take up some cases that are more about politics than contested points of law.

He told The New York Times: “In the long run this is a very dangerous trend. The judges are not elected representatives of the people and they are arrogating power to themselves as if they are the only sanctimonious institution in the country. All dictators fall prey to this psyche — that only we are clean, and capable of doing the right thing.”

‘Vengeful institution'

Mr. Zardari's “Mr. 10 per cent” image notwithstanding, the latest stand-off between his government and the apex court over ‘memogate' and the National Reconciliation Ordinance has left a sizeable section of opinion-makers openly critical of the superior judiciary for increasingly looking like a “vengeful institution rather than a neutral arbiter”.
“The judiciary has divided the nation” asserted Mohammad Waseem, a professor at the Lahore University of Management Studies in an article in the Dawn.

The comment reflected the ongoing debate over what is perceived as the “supremacist” role of the judiciary which, riding on the wave of the lawyers' movement, has been successful in asserting itself as the conscious-keeper of the nation as opposed to the “corrupt” and “blundering” Pakistan Peoples Party-led federal government.

Traditional bias

For diehard PPP supporters, the Supreme Court's prompt attention to some of the cases smacks of its traditional anti-PPP bias, epitomised in what is referred to as the “judicial murder” of party founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

“In the several months that it took the current governing alliance to restore the judges to their positions, there was no legal challenge against the alliance in general and the PPP in particular in the higher or superior judiciary. Post-restoration, however, the apex court started fielding not just case after case against the ruling dispensation but also invoking its suo moto jurisdiction to try it on counts still without a petitioner,” pointed out Adnan Rehmat in his article in The News on Sunday titled ‘The court of Supreme irony'.

Knowing full well the general aversion of the chattering classes for Mr. Zardari — primarily because he has not been able to shake off the charges of corruption leveled against him during wife Benazir Bhutto's two stints in the Prime Minister's office — another lawyer Waqqas Mir maintains that it still does not justify over-reach by any institution of the state.
“We cannot allow ourselves to be swayed by the arguments that if the executive is not doing its job properly then the courts should step in to solve the problem…. Surely we cannot argue, by the same logic, that if courts do not do their job properly then the Executive or the Legislature should be out convicting people?”
Viewing the judicial activism in the context of “jockeying for power and influence in the formative phase of democratic transition”, political analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi warned that the increased tension between the elected executive and non-elected Supreme Court could be used by the opposition to destabilise the government. Given the state of affairs in the country and maintaining that the military's capacity should not be underestimated, he wrote in Pakistan Today: “In case of direct military intervention, the superior judiciary will also be removed. Thus, the decline and discredit of democracy endangers independent judiciary.”

A hearing on Balochistan that stirs up new tensions between U.S. and Pakistan

It is now to be seen if international pressure can play a part in stemming the string of atrocities that have torn the province apart and created a state of affairs that grows grimmer by the day as the toll of misery and death continues to rise.

An extraordinary hearing of the U.S. Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs on February 8 exclusively focusing on Pakistan's restive Balochistan province has triggered new diplomatic tensions between Washington D.C. and Islamabad. At least five members of the U.S. Congress belonging to both the Democratic and the Republican parties and a retired colonel of the military directly or indirectly called for supporting the Baloch right to self-determination.

During the same hearing, a panel of five witnesses, including representatives of the Human Rights Watch and the Amnesty International, spoke of how the Pakistan government was using American weapons against the secular Baloch rebellion instead of using them against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. They told the hearing that Islamabad had manipulated the “war on terror” to commit widespread human rights violations against its Baloch political opponents.

The event, initially expected to be a routine hearing facilitated by Californian Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of the Republican Party, further shocked Islamabad when the chairman of the session and some other Congressmen asserted the need for redrawing Pakistan's borders, stopping its U.S. assistance and holding it accountable for allegedly killing American soldiers in Afghanistan by secretly funding the Taliban.

'Ill-advised'

Pakistan's Ambassador to Washington D.C., Sherry Rehman, condemned the hearing, calling it an “ill-advised move” which could be “detrimental to the trust between Pakistan and the United States of America.”

The presence of Ralph Peters, a retired army officer who had proposed in 2006 in an article the idea of a free Balochistan, as a witness at the Congressional hearing seemed only to further infuriate Pakistan. As expected, Mr. Peters, the author of more than 20 books, said it was an “incontrovertible fact” that Balochistan was an “occupied territory which never acceded to Pakistan and now does not want to be a part of Pakistan.”

He also contended, “If a plebiscite or referendum is to be held tomorrow, it [Balochistan] would vote to leave Pakistan.”

Mr. T. Kumar, Amnesty International's director for international advocacy, asked Washington to apply the Leahy Amendment without waivers to all Pakistani military units in Balochistan. Under the Amendment, the U.S. Congress will be required to stop funding a state whose army is found guilty of committing human rights violations.

Congressmen Louie Gohmert, who had also supported the idea of an independent Balochistan in a recent interview, expressed anguish over the misuse of American weapons against the Baloch dissidents. Congressman Ted Poe also spoke of Pakistan in harsh terms, and defended the Baloch right to “separate themselves from an abusive government.”

Located in the southwest, Balochistan is almost half of Pakistan's territory, but is its most backward province despite vast reservoirs of gas, gold, copper and a port in Gwadar. The Baloch have faced at least five deadly military operations by the Pakistani Army since what they describe as Balochistan's “illegal and forceful occupation” by Pakistan in 1948.

Since then, the province and the centre have had very troubled relations on the issue of resource control and autonomy. The Baloch blame Pakistan's dominant Punjab ethnic majority, who outnumber the rest of the communities in the Army, bureaucracy, media and foreign services, for extracting their natural resources for their own benefits without giving the local Baloch the benefits of these mineral resources.

In the backdrop of widespread anti-Pakistan sentiments in Balochistan, Islamabad sees the Congressional hearing as an effort to interfere in its internal matters. The government of Pakistan has snubbed repeated calls by international human rights groups to stop abuses in Balochistan, but it is widely acknowledged that a civilian government lacks the ability to contain the methods deployed by the intelligence agencies to deal with a political dispute.

The Baloch, backed by reputed human rights groups, claim that Pakistan's intelligence agencies have target killed the backbone of the Baloch intelligentsia in a way that resembles what happened during the 1971 revolt in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

Use of social media

The only difference between Balochistan and Bangladesh is the availability now of social media that Baloch activists have used skilfully to reach out to the world about what is happening in the province. In mainstream Pakistani media, reportage on the province is largely absent.

Several hundred political activists have disappeared since the conflict began in 2004, around 250 people have been found killed and dumped in deserted parts of Balochistan. These operations are not limited to one specific area but are being carried out across the province with absolute impunity. Many of the bullet-riddled dead bodies of Baloch youth show disturbing marks of torture.

The Baloch leaders and diaspora have widely welcomed the Congressional hearing. Mindful of the impression that the U.S. may be exploiting the Baloch only to settle scores with Pakistan, HairbayarMarri, a pro-independent Balochistan leader, thinks it is still not a bad deal. In a recent media statement he said the interests of the U.S. and Baloch did not clash with each other.

As expected of diplomats, Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokesman, said the U.S. administration was not a part of the Congressional hearing which, therefore, did not represent the policies of the Obama administration. Yet, the same spokesperson had last month voiced the “deep concern” of the U.S. over the ongoing violence in Balochistan, especially targeted killings, disappearances and human rights.

“This (Balochistan) is a complex issue. We strongly believe that the best way forward is for all the parties to resolve their differences through peaceful dialogue,” she had said.

Irrespective of the outcome of the Congressional hearing, the event in it

self was a landmark achievement for those Baloch nationalists who have been struggling to internationalise their issues. Islamabad must be mindful of the fact that it can no longer commit human rights violations, curb basic freedoms and still remain unnoticed in the age of social media.

Buoyed by the hearing, Baloch nationalists hope that the next step, given Balochistan's geostrategic importance and vast natural resources, would be an international community-facilitated regional conference of exiled Baloch political leaders, that would educate the world about the aspirations of the Baloch people. All said and done, at present, Pakistan does not have a formula to fix Balochistan. The two-year-old Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e Balochistan package and the 18th Amendment are often cited by Islamabad as the best measures it could ever take to address the Baloch conflict, but have thus far failed in that mission.

(The writer, based in Washington D.C., is the editor of The Baloch Hal, Balochistan's first online English newspaper: Twitter: MalikSirajAkbar)

Pakistan coveys anger to U.S. on Balochistan

Pakistan on Monday night conveyed its anger over the U.S. Congressional hearing on Balochistan with the National Assembly passing a unanimous resolution condemning what the political class saw as interference in its internal affairs.

Earlier in the day, the U.S. Charge d'Affairs Richard Hoagland was called to the Foreign Office and “officially conveyed the government's serious concern'' with regard to the hearing held by the U.S. Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on Oversight and Investigations in relation to Balochistan.

Mr. Hoagland was informed that such a hearing was unacceptable to Pakistan as it amounted to interference in the internal affairs of the country. The Charge D'Affairs, according to a statement issued by the Foreign Office, said the U.S. administration had not extended any support to the initiative nor did it subscribe to such views.

The resolution of the National Assembly articulated more or less the same sentiment; only in stronger words. It described the hearing as evidence of “blatant interference'' in Pakistan's internal affairs which could jeopardise a healing process in the already strained bilateral relations.

Urdu channels boycotted in Balochistan

In a bid to draw attention to the near blackout of Balochistan-related atrocities by the dominant television networks of the country, all Urdu channels have been shut down across the province for the past 24 hours.

The call for shutting down Urdu channels from February 1 was given by a Baloch students organisation to protest against the persistent bias in media coverage towards issues relating to Balochistan. In particular, Baloch activists are upset that the mainstream media seldom draws attention to the atrocities committed by the establishment against the people of the province.

Distinction

In taking this action against television channels, the Baloch people have drawn a distinction between Urdu channels and other language channels.

According to reports coming out of the province where the international media has little access, Sindhi, Pashto, Baloch and Brahui channels were unaffected by this boycott call.

Announcing the boycott call on Sunday, general secretary of Baloch Students Organisation (Mohyuddin) Javed Baloch said: “Baloch people are being subjected to enforced disappearances and their bullet-riddled bodies are turning up daily. But media is not highlighting this crime against humanity.

Timeline: 

Pakistan's troubled political history

By Reuters

Published: February 13, 2012

From creation of Bangladesh to Prime Minister Gilani's indictment by Supreme Court.

Here is a look back at Pakistan’s troubled political history:

December 1971 – Full-scale war breaks out between India and Pakistan over East Pakistan. It ends with surrender of 90,000 Pakistani troops and leads to creation of Bangladesh.

July 1977 – Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is deposed in a military coup and imprisoned; army chief General Mohammad Ziaul Haq takes power, imposes martial law and promises elections.

April 1979 – Zulfikar is hanged on a disputed conviction for conspiring to commit political murder. In October, Zia postpones elections indefinitely, and bans political parties.

February 1985 – Elections held. Zia sworn in as president for five-year term in March.

August 1988 – Zia dies in plane crash in Pakistan.

November 1988 – Benazir Bhutto, daughter of Zulfikar, wins elections.

August 1990 – President Ghulam Ishaq Khan sacks Benazir and cabinet for corruption and abuse of power. State of emergency declared. In November, Nawaz Sharif is elected prime minister.

1993 – Ishaq Khan dismisses Sharif’s government, accusing it of corruption. Benazir becomes prime minister again.

November 1996 – President Farooq Leghari sacks Benazir and calls elections, which Sharif wins.

October 1999 – Army chief Pervez Musharraf seizes power in bloodless coup. Sworn in as president in June 2001, he wins controversial referendum extending his rule for five more years in April 2002.

March 9, 2007 – Musharraf suspends Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry on charges of misconduct, setting off protests by lawyers and opposition politicians.

July – Musharraf orders troops to storm the Red Mosque in Islamabad. About 105 people are killed. A wave of militant attacks and bombings follow.

July 20 – Supreme Court reinstates Chief Justice Chaudhry, dealing a blow to Musharraf’s authority.

October 19 – At least 139 people killed in suicide bomb attack on Benazir’s motorcade as the former prime minister is driven through Karachi after arriving from eight years of exile.

December 27 – Benazir is killed in a gun and bomb attack after a rally in Rawalpindi. At least 16 others are killed.

August 18, 2008 – President Musharraf resigns after the ruling coalition agrees to launch impeachment proceedings against him.

September – Parliament elects Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) Asif Ali Zardari, widower of Benazir, as president.

November 26-29 – An attack on Mumbai in November kills 166 people and targets foreigners as well as Indians. The Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group, is blamed.

July 17, 2009 – Pakistan’s Supreme Court quashes a nine-year-old hijacking conviction against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, clearing at least one hurdle to him seeking power.

August 2010 – The worst floods in Pakistan kill more than 1,750 people, affect more than 18 million and inflict nearly $43 billion worth of damage to infrastructure and agriculture.

March 30, 2011 – India’s and Pakistan’s prime ministers meet during a World Cup cricket match in a symbolic gesture aimed at rebuilding ties shattered by the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

May 2 – A unilateral raid by US special forces kills al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.

November 26 – US-Pakistan relations plunge into crisis when Nato helicopters and fighter jets kill 24 Pakistani troops in attacks on two military border outposts in northwest Pakistan.

January 15, 2012 – Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani rejects a demand by the country’s powerful army chief that he clarify or retract his criticism of the army and spy agency, raising tension further.

Gilani criticises Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani and the director general of the ISI, Lieutenant-General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, for filing court papers in a case involving a mysterious memo that has pitted the military against the civilian government.

January 25 – Gilani reverses his earlier criticism that the country’s military had acted unconstitutionally in calling for an investigation of the controversial memo.

February 13 – Gilani pleads not guilty as the Supreme Court charges him with contempt of court for his refusal to re-open old corruption cases against President Zardari. If convicted, Gilani could be forced to step down and faces up to six months in jail.