On Wed, 2/25/09, Emergency Moderator/Teeth Maestro wrote:
Sharif brothers declared ineligible for Elections Posted by Teeth Maestro February 25,2009
http://teeth.com.pk/blog/2009/02/25/sharif-declared-ineligible
On Sat, 2/28/09, Jimmy Jumshade wrote:
They have created an unwanted crisis already when there is so much other crisis going on. Bloody Weirdos..... ......and Shareef brothers should have been disqualified & not allowed to participate in elections a year ago.....not after they have been in Office for a year.This is just a big time power-grab.
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Excerpts from ISLAMIC PAKISTAN: ILLUSIONS & REALITY By Abdus Sattar Ghazali:
The author is a professional journalist, with Master's degree in Political Science from the Punjab University. Started his journalistic career as a sub-editor in the daily Bang-e-Haram, Peshawar in 1960. Later worked in the daily Anjam and the Tourist weekly Peshawar. Served as a News Editor in the Daily News, Kuwait from 1969 to 1976. Joined the English News Department of Kuwait Television as a News Editor in December 1976. Also worked as the correspondent of the Associated Press of Pakistan and the Daily Dawn, Karachi, in Kuwait. At present working as the Editor-in-Chief of the Kuwait Television English News.
"QUOTE"
KARGIL MISADVENTURE
Indian fighter jets and helicopter gun-ships launched an operation against the Mujahideen in Kargil on May 26, 1999. Pakistan called the air strikes a "very very serious" provocation because the armies of both nations normally limit their hostilities to regular cross-border exchanges of artillery and small-arms fire. After India lost two Russian-built MiG fighters and a helicopter gunship, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee issued a stern warning that unless the infiltrators withdraw India would give "a befitting reply." On June 12, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz visited New Delhi to hold talks with his Indian counterpart, Jaswant Singh. The talks ended in a deadlock as India refused to discuss the Kashimir issue and insisted on withdrawal of what it called Pakistani infiltrators from Kargil.
President Clinton, in a telephone conversation on June 15, asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to withdraw Pakistani troops from the Indian part of Kashmir. A day earlier, Clinton had telephoned the Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and praised him for the restraint shown by him in the current tense situation. Since the Kargil round of fighting flared up, US officials had been explicitly urging Islamabad to pull back its forces from the rugged peaks on India's side of the Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir. As a means of applying pressure, the Clinton administration had also quietly floated the possibility of holding up a $100 million IMF loan due to be released to Islamabad soon. The US House of Representatives' Foreign Relations Committee adopted a resolution calling for suspension of IMF, World Bank and Asian Bank loans to Pakistan until the Mujahideen occupying Kargil withdraw across the LoC.
The Group of Eight industrial nations' summit in Cologne charged that the fighting in Kargil was the result of the infiltration of armed intruders, which violated the Line of Control. The European Union also called for the immediate withdrawal of the infiltrators. The US Commander of the Central Command (CENTCOM), General Anthony Zinni, met in Islamabad with the Chief of the Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, to defuse the Kargil situation. He warned that things could "get bad" for Pakistan if it does not withdraw infiltrators from Kargil.
The Clinton administration saw several objectives for the Pakistani operation, including enhancing Islamabad's negotiating leverage with India over Kashmir, forcing international involvement in the dispute, and rekindling a flagging insurgency against India by Kashmiris. US officials believed that another factor was a strong desire in the Pakistani military to kill the direct India-Pakistan dialogue.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Washington on July 4 to hold talks with US President Bill Clinton on situation in Kargil. In nearly three hours of talks in Washington on July 4, 1999, the two leaders agreed that "concrete steps will be taken to restore the Line of Control in accordance with the Simla Agreement". A joint statement issued after the talks said: "President Clinton and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif share the view that the current fighting in the Kargil region of Kashmir is dangerous and contains the seeds of a wider conflict." "The president urged an immediate cessation of the hostilities once these steps are taken," it added. Immediately after the talks, two senior US Administration officials told reporters that the "concrete steps" meant a Pakistani withdrawal from Kargil "at a very early time". [1]
Clinton-Nawaz meeting took place at the initiative of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. President Clinton made two phone calls to Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee before he officially said 'yes' to meet Nawaz Sharif. President Clinton made his second call to New Delhi and briefed Indian minister about his meeting with Nawaz Sharif.
Political and religious parties immediately rejected the Clinton-Nawaz declaration and the decision to seek a pullout of Mujahideen from Kargil, as they held massive rallies in Lahore. The rallies were organized by the Pakistan Awami Ittehad, the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Pakistan Awami Tehrik, the Khaksar Tehrik and the Markazi Jamaat Ahal-i-Hadith.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, in a televised address, on July 12, said that there was an imminent threat of war with India, which was no more a secret, and that there were "diplomatic complications" which were getting extremely difficult to be handled.
Giving details of his US visit, he said when the situation was becoming serious he decided to meet President Clinton. The PM said: "I am happy to tell you that President Clinton has accepted that as long as Kashmir dispute is not resolved, the clouds of war will continue to hover on the region. This was the background in which the Washington Declaration was prepared in which it was very clearly stated that all the disputes between India and Pakistan would be resolved though dialogue and the LoC should be respected by both the parties".
Nawaz Sharif's televised address to the nation was rejected by the opposition parties as nothing but acceptance of government's complete failure on the diplomatic front. "The question arises as to why they had decided to launch the Kargil operation," Deputy Opposition Leader Syed Khurshid Shah said in his reaction to the prime minister's speech. "If they have to go back to the Lahore process then who had advised them to go for the Kargil heights, he asked, adding that who was responsible for heavy loss of lives both to civilians and Pakistan army soldiers and officers at the Line of Control. He recalled that it was the same PML who had taken the PPP government to task for removing a board of Kashmir House during a visit of Rajiv Gandhi to Islamabad.
According to General Khalid Mahmud Arif, Nawaz Sharif's Washington visit had seven objectives to achieve: "One, to avert a war at a time and place of India's choosing. Two, to emphasize that the Line of Control in Kashmir has equal sanctity for both the countries and its violation can lead to serious consequences. Also, the people of Kashmir have never accepted the CFL renamed LoC and they reject any attempt that divides them. Three, to bring the Kashmir dispute and the UN Security Council's commitments on it under a sharp international focus. Four, to request the US-led West to get seriously associated with a negotiated and peaceful settlement of the Kashmir dispute. Five, to muster international support for the right of self-determination for the people of Kashmir. Six, to bring the massive human rights violations committed by the Indian occupation forces in Kashmir to world's attention. And, seven, to emphasize Pakistan's peaceful approach in settling the Kashmir dispute." The restraint shown by it in the face of threats, provocations and a war hysteria created by India has vindicated Pakistan's position as a mature, peaceful and moderate country, concluded General Arif who served as the Deputy Commander-in-Chief during General Zia's regime. [2]
However the people of Pakistan were not surprised but stunned by the Sharif-Clinton accord since this is not what they had been led to expect. According to Ayaz Amir "The two surprised parties must be Clinton and Vajpayee. When Nawaz Sharif telephoned Clinton and requested an urgent meeting, the American president, who is no one's fool, must have realized in a flash that it was all up for the Pakistanis. But is it far-fetched to suppose that even he must have been taken aback by the eager enthusiasm of the Pakistani leadership to cave in and put its signature to a one-sided document. [3]
By the same token, Vajpayee too must have been taken by surprise. The Indian army, despite the successes it has scored, was not having an easy time of it in Kargil and Drass. Dangerous terrain, an elusive enemy and heavy casualties are not things an army likes. Imagine then the sense of relief in New Delhi when Clinton called to say that the Pakistani leadership was about to execute a volte-face and all it demanded in return was that he (Clinton) should give this turnaround his blessing. A bang turning to a whimper: to this timeworn phrase a fresh meaning has been given. [4]
The Tashkent and Simla accords look like victory parchments by comparison. Ayub Khan did not suffer humiliation at Tashkent. Even if the Tashkent agreement went down badly in Pakistan because official propaganda, always a curse in this country, had raised popular expectations to fever pitch, it was a fair agreement between two countries, which had fought each other to a standstill. At Simla on the other hand, Pakistan was at a grave disadvantage because it had suffered a humiliating defeat at India's hands. Yet even in the shadow of that disaster Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, to his enduring credit, managed to preserve what remained of Pakistan's honour. The Washington statement defies understanding. For such submission wherein lay the compelling necessity? "[5]
Ardeshir Cowasjee was blunt in his remarks that the world failed to see the logic in Pakistan's argument that India escalated the situation in Kashmir. "The Line of Control was crossed by some 500 men. By sending in 30,000 men, artillery, and military planes to dislodge them, Pakistan claims that India escalated the situation. The world has failed to see the logic of this argument. [6]
Pakistan's line is that the uprising in Kashmir is "popular, spontaneous and indigenous." Its line, as voiced by its foreign minister on the BBC, is that all that it provides to the freedom fighters is "moral, political, and diplomatic" support. Does he know that the BBC news, just after his 'Hard Talk,' showed the Islamabad correspondent talking to freedom fighters who had just descended from the hills of Kargil to their base depot at Muzaffarabad to rearm, regroup and return? Why do our men mock us, and make a laughing-stock of us in the eyes of the world? [7]
The mission to China failed. A statement from the G-8 was frosty. With the intent of averting a major conflict, Nawaz Sharif sought help from the president of the United States, 'rushed' to Washington to meet him on America's Independence Day. Clinton met him, not in the White House, but in Blair House. During the meetings, Clinton, not wishing to antagonize India, broke to ring Vajpayee and apprise him of the progress. A sop of sorts was thrown at us. We accepted. Sharif and his family went shopping, then on their way home stopped over in London, where he shook Tony Blair's apprehensive hand. [8]
Though the prime minister has pledged that hostilities will cease, noises are being made that the government is not sure that the popular, spontaneous, indigenous freedom fighters will abide by the terms of Nawaz Sharif's pledge. We know that the present localized hostilities will cease once the shot and shell stop raining from the skies. We have heard the Indian prime minister boast over the airways that India will give us no quarter and will 'kick us out.' [9]
Neither India nor Pakistan is concerned about the desire of the seven million Kashmiris. Neither country talks of allowing them to decide their fate for themselves. China for its own good reason is not keen on Kashmiri self-determination as it has its own problems with the fundamentalists in a large track in the south-west of the country, and in Tibet. Pakistan is unconcerned about the plight of the 150 million Muslims of India. It does not realize that each time it embarks on a Kargil-type misadventure, these Muslims have to work overtime trying to prove their loyalty to their country. [10]
India, with its size and weight, can afford to be, and is, intransigent. To get India to talk and see things our way, we do need global support and sympathy. Does the government comprehend that so far all we have achieved and established, relatively cheaply, is that we are globally isolated? Has a lesson been learnt?" [11]
The tailpiece of the Kargil fiasco is difficult to match in the annals of diplomatic humiliation. Certainly the worst setback for us since the fall of united Pakistan in December 1971. How did it arise? What was the game plan? Was it sanctioned by the Defence Committee of the Cabinet? Should an enquiry into the debacle be made by Parliament? These are some of the questions that are agitating the minds of concerned citizens. [12]
CHRONOLOGY OF KARGIL DEBACLE
May 26: Indian fighter jets and helicopter gun ships launch operation against the Mujahideen in Kargil. Pakistan calls the air strikes a "very very serious" provocation because the armies of both nations normally limit their hostilities to regular
cross-border exchanges of artillery and small arms fire. After India lost two Russian-built MiG fighters and a helicopter gunship, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee issued a stern warning. Unless the infiltrators withdraw, he said, India would give "a befitting reply."
June 12: Pakistan's Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz visits New Delhi and holds talks with his Indian counterpart, Jaswant Singh. The talks ended in a deadlock as India refused to discuss the Kashimir issue and insisted on withdrawal of what it called Pakistani infiltrators from Kargil.
June 15: President Clinton, in a telephone conversation, asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to withdraw Pakistani troops from the Indian part of Kashmir. Clinton called the prime minister as part of his continued efforts to reduce tensions and prevent the situation from escalating into a full-fledged conflict between the two countries. On June 14, Clinton had telephoned the Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and praised him for the restraint shown by him in the current tense situation.
June 16: The Stockholm-based International Peace Institute (SIPRI) says: "The risk of nuclear proliferation by Pakistan and India in Kashmir is increasingly significant. The greatest risk of nuclear war in South Asia arises from Pakistan's long-standing strategy of using the threat of early first use of nuclear weapons to deter conventional war."
June 20: Leaders of the Group of Eight industrial nations, in Cologne, Germany, call on Pakistan and India to end hostilities immediately and resume talks. In a statement, the G8 leaders, including US President Bill Clinton and Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, voiced "deep concern" over the continuing military confrontation in Kashmir, repeating their earlier charge that the fighting was the result of "the infiltration of armed intruders which violated the Line of Control." "We are deeply concerned about the continuing military confrontation is Kashmir following the infiltration of armed intruders which violated the Line of Control in the disputed border region. We regard any military action to change the status quo as irresponsible. We therefore call for the immediate end of these actions, restoration of the Line of Control and for the parties to work for an immediate cessation of fighting."
June 24: The Commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), General Anthony Zinni, meets the Chief of the Army Staff, General Pervez Musharraf, to defuse the Kargil situation. In Washington, the US state department cautions that things could "get bad" for Pakistan. "That's for sure," a senior official said without denying that Gen Anthony Zinni had extended some kind of an implied "warning" to withdraw from Kargil.
June 25: The European Union has called on both India and Pakistan to show maximum restraint and hold to their assigned borders in the dispute over Kashmir while trying to resume diplomatic talks. Germany, which held the six-month EU presidency until the end of June, released a statement in which it demanded the withdrawal of armed infiltrators from Kashmir. "The EU calls for the immediate withdrawal of the infiltrators and urges both countries to work for the immediate cessation of fighting, to fully respect the line of control and to prevent further cross border infiltration," the statement said.
June 27: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif sends a special envoy to New Delhi in an apparent effort to ease the tension in Kashmir. The emissary, former foreign secretary Niaz Naik, met with Indian PM Atal Behari Vajpayee and his National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra. The Indian Foreign Ministry said Naik had come to follow up on the telephone conversations between the Indian and Pakistani PMs over the past several weeks. Naik came with a secret message from Sharif. The gist of it was that both sides should search for a diplomatic solution to the crisis along the Line of Control (LOC) that divides the disputed region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan. The same day that Naik flew to India, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gibson Lanpher met Indian officials in New Delhi following a visit to Pakistan.
Jun 28: Prime Minister Sharif visits Beijing and hold talks with his Chinese counterpart Zhu Rongji. The China Daily reporting on the meeting between Nawaz Sharif and Premier Zhu Rongji said that China had sincerely hoped that Pakistan and India would alleviate tensions in Kashmir through talks and return stability to the region soon. "The Kashmir issue is a historical issue involving territorial, ethnic and religious elements. It can thus be solved only through peaceful means; Zhu was quoted as saying by a Chinese foreign office spokesman.
- Pakistan and China signed four agreements following a meeting between the delegations of the two countries. These agreements were about cooperation in the development of Super-7 aircraft, cooperation in the cultural sector, cooperation in electronic media and counselor cooperation under which the counselor in Hong Kong would look after Pakistan's interests in Macao when it returns to China in December.
June 29: China has called upon India and Pakistan to resolve all their disputes through dialogue, a Foreign Office spokesman told newsmen after an hour-long meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chairman of the Committee of the Chinese People's Congress, Li Peng, in Beijing at the Great Hall.
July 2: Pakistan suffered a setback in the US Congress when the House Foreign Relations Committee adopted a resolution calling for suspension of IMF, World Bank and Asian Bank loans to Pakistan until the Mujahideen occupying Kargil withdraw across the LoC. The resolution, passed by 22-5 votes, demanded immediate withdrawal of Pakistani forces from Kargil/Drass/Batalik areas of Jammu and Kashmir and asked the Clinton administration to consider opposing loans from international financial institutions to Islamabad unless Pakistan withdrew its forces.
July 4: President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif reached an agreement under which the freedom fighters that crossed into certain parts of occupied Kashmir would withdraw. Clinton and Sharif said in a joint statement after three hours of talks: "It was agreed between the president and the prime minister that concrete steps will be taken for the restoration of the Line of Control".
July 6: British Prime Minister Tony Blair terms the joint statement issued after the meeting of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and President Bill Clinton as a "real progress" in reducing tension between India and Pakistan. A spokesman of 10-Downing Street said, at the conclusion of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's 30-minute meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair, that the two were of the opinion that the a quick beginning should be made in the actions proposed in the joint statement.
July 9: Political and religious parties rejected the Clinton-Nawaz declaration and the decision to seek a pullout of Mujahideen from Kargil as they held rallies in Lahore. The rallies were organized by the Pakistan Awami Ittehad, the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Pakistan Awami Tehrik, the Khaksar Tehrik and the Markazi Jamaat Ahal-i-Hadith.
July 10: All Mujahideen groups unanimously reject both the Washington accord and an appeal made by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif regarding a pullout of the Mujahideen from the Kargil sector and pledged not only to continue their occupation in Kargil and Drass but also invade other disputed areas near the Line of Control (LoC). This was stated by Ahmed Hamza, the Amir of the Al-Badar Mujahideen, at a press conference in Islamabad. He was accompanied by two commanders of the organization - Salahuddin and Nisar - who had recently returned from Kargil and Drass sectors.
July 11: Pakistan announces the beginning of the "disengagement" of the Mujahideen and their withdrawal from the heights of Kaksar and Mushkoh in Kargil sector, following an agreement on the modalities of de-escalation and sector-wise cessation of ground and air operations between Pakistan and Indian directors-general military operations (DGMOs). The directors-general of military operations of the two countries had held their first contact on hotline, and then met at Wagah to decide the modalities for de-escalation.
July 12: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, in a televised address, said that there was an imminent threat of war with India which was no more a secret and that there were "diplomatic complications" which were getting extremely difficult to be handled.
Giving details of his US visit, he said when the situation was becoming serious he decided to meet President Clinton.
July 13: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's televised address to the nation was rejected by the opposition parties as nothing but acceptance of government's complete failure on the diplomatic front. "The question arises as to why they had decided to launch the Kargil operation," Deputy Opposition Leader Syed Khurshid Shah said in his reaction to the prime minister's speech. "If they have to go back to the Lahore process then who had advised them to go for the Kargil heights, he asked, adding that who was responsible for heavy loss of lives both to civilians and Pakistan army soldiers and officers at the Line of Control.
July 16: The attorney general of Pakistan, justifying the Washington communique, says that Pakistan is completely isolated and economically could not have sustained a full-fledged war. The country is already 50 years behind the developed world and would have been thrown another 50 years back had there been a war.
REFERENCES
1. TEXT OF STATEMENT: The following is the text of the joint statement by President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif issued by the White House after their talks on 4.7.1999: "President Clinton and Prime Minister Sharif share the view that the current fighting in the Kargil region of Kashmir is dangerous and contains the seeds of a wider conflict. They also agreed that it was vital for the peace of South Asia that the Line of Control in Kashmir be respected by both parties, in accordance with their 1972 Simla Accord. It was agreed between the President and the Prime Minister that concrete steps will be taken for the restoration of the Line of Control in accordance with the Simla Agreement. The President urged an immediate cessation of the hostilities once these steps are taken. The Prime Minister and the President agreed that the bilateral dialogue began in Lahore in February provides the best forum for resolving all issues dividing India and Pakistan, including Kashmir. The President said he would take a personal interest in encouraging an expeditious resumption and intensification of those bilateral efforts, once the sanctity of the Line of Control has been fully restored. The President reaffirmed his intent to pay an early visit to South Asia."
2. General (retired) Khalid Mahmud Arif, Beyond Washington accord – Dawn 14.7.1999
3. Ayaz Amir, Victory in reverse: the great climb down - Dawn 9-7-1999
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ardeshir Cowasjee, Lesson learnt? – Dawn 11.7.1999
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. M.P. Bhandara, On the edge of the precipice – Dawn 21.7.1999
CONCLUDED
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