An extensive search of the WikiLeaks database by the Guardian by date, name and keyword failed to locate any of the incendiary allegations. It suggests this is the first case of WikiLeaks being exploited for propaganda purposes. The controversial claims, published in four Pakistani national papers, were credited to the Online Agency, an Islamabad-based news service that has frequently run pro-army stories in the past. No journalist is bylined. Shaheen Sehbai, group editor at the News, described the story as "agencies' copy" and said he would investigate its origins. The incident fits in with the wider Pakistani reaction to WikiLeaks since the first cables emerged. But Pakistan's media has given a wide berth to stories casting the military in a negative light, focusing instead on the foibles of the country's notoriously weak politicians. Meanwhile conspiracy theorists, including some journalists, insist Washington secretly leaked the cables in an effort to discredit the Muslim world; the Saudi ambassador described them as propaganda. But the real cables do contain allegations of Indian support for Baloch separatists, largely sourced to British intelligence assessments. Pakistan's press is generally cautious in reporting about its own army. But some internet commentators said the latest WikiLeaks story was a bridge too far. REFERENCE: Pakistani media publish fake WikiLeaks cables attacking India Comments alleged to be from WikiLeaks US embassy cables say Indian generals are genocidal and New Delhi backs militants Declan Walsh in Islamabad guardian.co.uk, Thursday 9 December 2010 16.29 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/09/pakistani-newspaper-fake-leaks-india
WASHINGTON: A cable from US Embassy in Islamabad leaked by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks disclosed that there were enough evidences of Indian involvement in Waziristan and other tribal areas of Pakistan as well as Balochistan. WikiLeaks revealed that a cable sent from a US mission in India termed former Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor as an incompetent combat leader and rather a geek. Enough evidence of Indian involvement in Balochistan, Waziristan Thursday, December 09, 2010 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=2549&Cat=13
Lets for argument sake we agree with "Jang/The News Leaks" regarding Foreign Meddling [read India] in Balochistan and Waziristan then would the Jang Group try to explain the opinion they Publish in the very The News International [Read the Rag]
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Foreign hand in Balochistan? Dr Farrukh Saleem [The writer is an Islamabad-based Freelance columnist] Article appeared in The News International on 08-01-2006. India on the east, China in the north and Iran and Afghanistan on the west. Which foreign hand has an interest in destabilising Balochistan? Is Iran arming Baloch insurgents? Here are a few facts: Sistan va Baluchestan, with an area of 187,502 kilometres, is the third largest province in Iran. Sistan va Baluchestan has a population of nearly two million and occupies 11.4 per cent of Iranian territory. Will Iran prop up Baloch nationalism in Pakistan at the risk of encouraging nationalist fervour in Iranian Balochistan? As a matter of record, the Iranian Air Force actually helped us quell the 'rebellion' during the 70s (by loaning us their helicopters). Furthermore, Iran now has an economic interest in the stability of Pakistan's Balochistan or her dream of selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of natural gas will evaporate in thin air.
Is Afghanistan arming Baloch insurgents? Here are a few facts: Lt General David Barno is the top commander of American forces in Afghanistan. The US has the Bagram Air Base (Parvan, Charikar), Kandahar Air Base, Khost Airbase (Paktia) and Mazar-e-Sharif Airbase. There is a large contingent of US National Guard soldiers embedded with Afghan units, and Lt General David Barno is training a 70,000 strong Afghan government force. Can the state of Afghanistan arm Baloch separatists without the explicit authorisation of Lt General David Barno? Then there is Hamid Karzai, so deeply engulfed in troubles of his own neither interested nor capable of arming Baloch insurgents. Is America arming Baloch insurgents? Right now, a stable Pakistan is in America's best strategic interest. Bush needs Musharraf to be focused on Bush's 'war on terror' rather than a powerful distraction elsewhere. And, if Uncle Sam wanted Baloch insurgents to win there is little we can do anyway. Is al-Qaeda arming Baloch insurgents? Baloch nationalists are secular al-Qaeda is not; the two have very different agendas and goals.
Is China arming Baloch insurgents? Here are a few facts: The total cost of the Gwadar Port Project is estimated at $1.6 billion. In the first phase, China has put in $198 million and Pakistan $50 million. Additionally, China is investing $200 million toward the building of a coastal highway. Gwadar is China's strategic foothold in the Arabian Sea. An instable Balochistan is not in China's interest.
Finally, is India arming Baloch insurgents? The only way that India can arm Baloch insurgents is either through Iran or through Afghanistan. Clearly, India cannot support Baloch insurgents through Iran without the explicit permission of the supreme leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei. Again, Indian cannot arm Baloch insurgents through Afghanistan without the explicit permission of Lt General David Barno. Additionally, an instable Balochistan jeopardises India's pipeline dreams and is not in India's long-term economic interests. There is little doubt that arms are flowing into Pakistan's Balochistan both through Iran and Afghanistan. That, however, in no way means that the states of Iran or Afghanistan are directly involved. Surely, the entire region has long been flooded with Kalashnikovs, heavy machine guns, rocket propelled grenades, landmines and mortars. Every kind of killing machine is available to anyone who is willing to pay the price, and then Pakistan's border with Afghanistan is a rugged 2,430 kilometres long, the one with Iran is 909 kilometres (even America has failed to block the supply of arms to Iraqi 'insurgents').
"We don't face any external threat," said General Musharraf (Agence France-Presse; December 12, 2003). To be certain, the real threat in Balochistan is from DDP; deprivation, discrimination and poverty. According to a recent estimate, "89 per cent of rural Balochistan is in high deprivation areas." Gas from Sui (Balochistan), for instance, is valued at Rs 47 per million BTU, Qadirpur (Sindh) at Rs145 per million BTU and from Ratana (Punjab) at Rs217 per million BTU. Looking at poverty, the incidence of poverty in Balochistan is 50 per cent of the population, twice that of Punjab (the literacy rate of females in Balochistan is at 16 per cent, the lowest in Pakistan and worse than what it is in Ethiopia). The very structure of the state of Pakistan is such that authority is extremely centralised, and the needs of large segments of Pakistani population outside the power structure are not responded to until they go violent. When Balochistan goes violent, gunship helicopters with automatic cannons are sent in. There is no military solution to deprivation, discrimination and poverty.
The News Karachi's front page today
Jang's front page today
Courtesy: Leaking Away (Updated) THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2010
Thursday, December 09, 2010, Muharram 02, 1432 A.H
http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/dec2010-daily/09-12-2010/main.htm
What, Balochistan again? PLAIN WORDS M B Naqvi This article had appeared on 28-12-2005 in The News International - For the fifth time since 1947, Islamabad is using military force against Baloch nationalists. Indeed, the soldiers have to unavoidably target ordinary Baloch as well. The ongoing 'operation' marks the second occasion during General Pervez Musharraf's rule that military force is being applied against Balochistan. Why does the Pakistani state resort to use of force in Balochistan? The Baloch are certainly alienated. There is said to be a Balochistan Liberation Army and a Balochistan Liberation Front. They engage in ambushes, bomb blasts, rocket attacks and sabotage. Even Karachi is not outside their ambit. Why are the people of Balochistan so antagonised with the Centre? Let's pause and think. Perhaps the federal authorities have resorted to force so many times in Balochistan because its people tend to protest in less peaceful ways. And what do the Baloch people want, some of whom are now insurgents? Is there something strange about Balochistan? Or is there some peculiar trait in the central authorities? In any case, what has Islamabad achieved through the use of force?
What is certain is that the reactions of the common Baloch people to the Centre's politics have been adverse. But that is not strange. Of all the three minority provinces, Balochistan is about the most discontented. Currently, news of ambushes, rocket attacks on military targets, and sabotage of railway tracks and gas pipelines is frequent. True, many Baloch leaders doubt whether the BLA exists. But the evidence of actions does amount to a low-level insurgency. It is therefore urgent to repeat: what does Islamabad gain through frequent use of force? Military actions involve killing of unproven 'miscreants' that may include any number of innocents. That has a political cost. The story of the army's deployment in Balochistan has been decades in the making.
The Pakistan Army's show of force ensured the accession of Balochistan soon after independence, though happily no blood was shed. Then, President Ayub Khan used the army to put down what were perhaps isolated dissident protests. In 1973 the PPP government launched a major four-year-long operation. The fourth time was last year, under Musharraf, when the army killed many locals in the Kohlu and Dera Bugti areas. And now Musharraf is again quelling the 'miscreants'. An attempt on the president's life in Kohlu last month shows how grim the situation is. Eight rockets were fired and one landed just two hundred yards from the president. Within days a rocket fired by insurgents hit a helicopter carrying two top officers of the Frontier Constabulary; both were wounded. The fighting as I write is extensive and also bloody. One wonders how many innocent Pakistanis who may not be BLA members are being killed. Obviously the quest for establishing the writ of the authority is the motive behind such use of force. But the fact of the matter is that every use of force has been progressively less effective. Nobody seems to believe that the threat of force is far more effective than its use. Somehow that notion has not penetrated the rarefied atmosphere surrounding Pakistan's rulers. One wonders why General Ayub shifted the capital from Karachi to Rawalpindi which lies squarely in the territory of the martial races. This creates a militaristic psychosis among those living in the area. Dissent seems to them an insult and their impulse is to lash out. Anyway, Islamabad could never perceive the political dimensions of the Balochistan problem.
What are the reasons for the antagonism in Balochistan? The Baloch are angry, but Islamabad sees only the foreign hand. Earlier, Afghans and Soviets were blamed for spreading 'disaffection'. Later it was the Shah of Iran as well as the US itself that appeared to have interests in Balochistan. Indeed, the Shah is on record as having said as much. In the 1980s, Balochistan acted as one of the sanctuaries for attacks on Afghanistan, which was Islamabad's design. That fomented Islamic extremism, the progenitor of the Taliban, and then the Taliban themselves who tend to double as sectarian terrorists. The Taliban were projected as the army's success story. The so-called 'agencies' have continued to call the shots in Balochistan and have mightily manipulated political developments in the province. Many Baloch nationalists believe and say that their provincial government comprises a bunch of toadies. Real power, they say, resides in the 'agencies'. Anyway, the province is seething with discontent. Its Pashtun belt is quiet so far but divided between supporters and opponents of the Taliban. Pashtuns have been generally well adjusted in Pakistan, though they are dissatisfied with their share in power and pelf. Coincidentally, the distinction between two types of Pashtun nationalists needs to be noted: the secular Pashtun nationalism of the NAP, ANP and PMAP is under attack from the Taliban who exemplify a Pashtun nationalism rooted in Islamic consciousness and goals. But Balochistan's discontent has many other sources.
Sindh is also seething with anger. President Musharraf's campaign to popularise Kalabagh Dam is seen as a challenge and an insult; anyone visiting Kotri can see what the mighty Indus has been reduced to. The cause is said to be heavier withdrawals upstream of Sukkur Barrage. Lower Sindh has been woefully short of water while shortages are being felt in upper Sindh as well. New canals leading off from KBD would mean even less water for Sindh. There is no arithmetic which proves that if more water is used upstream, it will increase water flows downstream of Sukkur. It is a zero-sum game. Water is a finite commodity.
The president promises Sindh that the Punjab will not reduce its water supplies. 'Iron-clad' constitutional guarantees are being offered. It is unclear if this includes a guarantee against new canals taking away water for use in southeast Punjab. At any rate, there is a huge deficit of trust in the three provinces where the Punjab is concerned. At least four unconstitutional military governments have shown that constitutions mean nothing in Pakistan; they have been prostituted so many times. Who will trust a constitutional guarantee for Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP after what has been seen as the army's twitch to take over. Then, Musharraf's words to the effect that "no Islamabad government can survive against the Punjab's wishes" is sure to erode national unity and the trust sustaining it. The outlook for Pakistan politics is bleak. No state can survive through force alone. The Centre does possess plenty of military might -- in fact, more than is normally needed in a democracy. The force that Islamabad possesses is predicated on the perceived Indian threat. The fact now is that war between India and Pakistan is now inconceivable after the 2002 crisis; neither can start a war again. The current size of forces is now distorting politics and conditioning minds in Islamabad. Pakistan does not need an armed forces of this size.
The problem of Balochistan, all said and done, is mainly political. All that Baloch nationalists want is the power to make decisions in Balochistan and a share at the Centre. Their self-rule aims to prevent exploitation of resources that does not benefit them. This is their right and they should get it. They also do not want outsiders to outnumber them. This too is justified. They do not want their government to be run by outside bureaucrats and 'agencies'. These 'agencies' have to be reigned in anyhow and brought firmly under parliament's control. If they are secret and are only meant for gathering information, then they had better stay secret and not interfere in politics. Period. Dialogue with the nationalists is needed. Governments in Quetta must have as much autonomy as would reassure them that their resources, particularly gas and oil, are not being used only to the benefit of others. They want a development that is determined by the Baloch people. The shortage of Baloch engineers and technologists needs to be removed by training more Baloch students through a crash programme in higher institutions. Let the Baloch people do it themselves.
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Jang Group, The News International, GEO TV and their "Alleged Editors and Senior [& Investigative too] Correspondents often quote "Foreign Think Tanks, Study Groups and NGOs like in the news [Daily Jang] below has quoted International Crisis Group, lets read what the same International Crisis Group say about "Foreign Hand in Balochsitan, Minorities, Pliant Judiciary and last but not the least Islamic Seminaries.
Thursday, December 09, 2010, Muharram 02, 1432 A.H
http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/dec2010-daily/09-12-2010/main.htm
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VALIDATING MILITARY INTERVENTIONS
As per a report by International Crisis Group "REFORMING THE JUDICIARY IN PAKISTAN" dated 16 October 2008:
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Pakistan’s higher judiciary has repeatedly validated military interventions and sanctioned constitutional amendments that have fundamentally altered the legal and political system. Attempting to explain its failure to protect the constitution through the “doctrine of state necessity”, the judiciary has relied on the dubious argument that the army’s intervention could be justified because of the pressing need for political stability. This doctrine was first developed in three cases in 1955 in the Federal Court, as the Supreme Court was then known, to justify the extra-constitutional dismissal of the legislature by a titular head of state.11 Drawing on the precedent of those decisions, the Supreme Court validated General Mohammed Ayub Khan’s 1958 declaration of martial law, General Mohammad Ziaul Haq’s 1977 coup and General Pervez Musharraf’s 1999 coup. While these Supreme Court judgments gave military regimes the trappings of legality, repeated military interventions have hampered the growth of civilian institutions and moderate political parties and forces. The centralisation of power in a Punjabi-dominated army has also strained centre-province relations in a multi-ethnic, multi-regional state, even as the military’s use of religion to justify political control has undermined the security of Pakistani citizens, particularly women and religious and sectarian minorities. REFERENCE: Reforming the Judiciary in Pakistan Asia Report N°160 16 October 2008 http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5728&l=1
VALIDATING MILITARY INTERVENTIONS
Some courageous judges, such as Supreme Court Justices Dorab Patel and Fakhruddin G. Ibrahim,15 have refused to sanctify authoritarian interventions, and preferred to resign rather than undermine constitutionalism and the rule of law. By legitimising military rule and intervention, most have, however, abdicated their duty to uphold the law. Following Musharraf’s coup, the Supreme Court was purged of judges who might have opposed the military’s unconstitutional assumption of power. Judges were required to take an oath to Musharraf’s Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), 1999, superseding the oath they had sworn at their induction to the 1973 constitution.16 On 26 January 2000, thirteen judges, including Chief Justice Saiduzzaman Siddiqui and four other Supreme Court justices, were removed for refusing to do so. The reconstituted Supreme Court was composed of judges who willingly accepted the military’s directions. They included Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who was elevated to the Court in January 2000 and appointed chief justice by Musharraf in 2005. The judges took their oath of office under the PCO 1999, which omits the reference to their duty to “protect, uphold and defend” the 1973 constitution. On 21 May 2000, this bench upheld the legality of Musharraf’s coup under the doctrine of state necessity. The Supreme Court also authorised the army chief to amend the constitution, albeit within the bounds of its federal, democratic and parliamentary character. The Court also concluded that those judges who had been sacked following the PCO oath had lost any right to challenge their removal due to the passage of time. By placing personal survival over the rule of law and constitutionalism, these judges allowed another dicta tor to implement sweeping changes that expanded the military’s political powers and hold over the state. REFERENCE: Reforming the Judiciary in Pakistan Asia Report N°160 16 October 2008 http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5728&l=1
Like Zia’s Eighth Amendment, Musharraf’s Seventeenth Amendment, passed by a rubber-stamp parliament in December 2003, enshrined all executive orders and changes made under military rule.21 The Seventeenth Amendment gave the president, the titular head of state, the power to dismiss elected governments and parliament and also transferred from the prime minister, the head of government, key appointment powers to the president including appointments of governors, the three service chiefs and the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Musharraf’s constitutional distortions weakened civilian institutions. By sidelining secular democratic forces, the military government also enabled right-wing religious parties to fill the vacuum. In dismissing legal challenges to Seventeenth Amendment, the Supreme Court shirked its responsibility to protect constitutional rule. REFERENCE: Reforming the Judiciary in Pakistan Asia Report N°160 16 October 2008 http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5728&l=1
LET ME GIVE YOU A MINOR GLIMPSE OF A VERY GRAVE SITUATION
The Pakistani government must investigate the torture and killings of more than 40 Baloch leaders and political activists over the past four months, Amnesty International said today. Activists, politicians and student leaders are among those who have been targeted in enforced disappearances, abductions, arbitrary arrests and cases of torture and other ill-treatment. The violence takes place against a backdrop of increasing political unrest and Pakistan army operations in Balochistan, south western Pakistan. “The Pakistani government must act immediately to provide justice for the growing list of atrocities in Balochistan,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Director. “Baloch political leaders and activists are clearly being targeted and the government must do much more to end this alarming trend.” Among the latest victims of the ongoing violence are Faqir Mohammad Baloch and Zahoor Baloch, whose bodies were discovered in the district of Mastung on 21 October 2010. Faqir Mohammad Baloch, a poet and member of the Voice of Missing Baloch Missing Persons, was abducted on 23 September. Zahoor Baloch, a member of the Baloch Student Organization-Azad was abducted on 23 August. According to media reports, both received a single bullet wound to the head at point blank range and showed signs of being tortured. REFERENCE: PAKISTAN URGED TO INVESTIGATE MURDER AND TORTURE OF BALOCH ACTIVISTS 25 October 2010 http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/pakistan-urged-investigate-murder-and-torture-baloch-activists-2010-10-26
Violence continues unabated in Pakistan’s strategically important and resource-rich province of Balochistan, where the military government is fighting Baloch militants demanding political and economic autonomy. President Pervez Musharraf’s government insists the insurgency is an attempt to seize power by a handful of tribal chiefs bent on resisting economic development. Baloch nationalists maintain it is fuelled by the military’s attempts to subdue dissent by force and the alienation caused by the absence of real democracy. Whether or not free and fair national and provincial elections are held later this year or in early 2008 will determine whether the conflict worsens. Instead of redressing Baloch political and economic grievances, the military is determined to impose state control through force. The killing of the Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti by the army in August 2006 was followed by the incarceration of another, Sardar Akhtar Jan Mengal, who has been held on terrorism-related charges without due process since December. Law enforcement agencies have detained thousands of Baloch nationalists or those believed to be sympathetic to the cause; many have simply disappeared. With the nationalist parties under siege, many young activists are losing faith in the political process and now see armed resistance as the only viable way to secure their rights. REFERENCE: Pakistan: The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistan 22 Oct 2007 http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/pakistan/B069-pakistan-the-forgotten-conflict-in-balochistan.aspx
Relying also on divide-and-rule policies, the military still supports Pashtun Islamist parties such as Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Deobandi Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) in a bid to counter secular Baloch and moderate Pashtun forces. The JUI-F is the dominant member of the six-party Islamist alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Musharraf’s coalition partner in the provincial government since October 2002. It is also a key patron of the Afghan Taliban. Using Balochistan as a base of operation and sanctuary and recruiting from JUI-F’s extensive madrasa network, the Taliban and its Pakistani allies are undermining the state-building effort in Afghanistan. At the same time, U.S. and other Western support for Musharraf is alienating the Baloch, who otherwise could be natural partners in countering extremism in Pakistan. Although the military has retained control through force, it is fast losing the campaign to win hearts and minds. The insurgency now crosses regional, ethnic, tribal and class lines. Musharraf appears oblivious to the need to change course if the insurgency is to be contained and political stability restored. Islamabad has yet to implement any of the recommendations on Balochistan’s political and economic autonomy made by a Senate (upper house) committee in November 2005. The federal government has also disregarded the Balochistan provincial assembly’s unanimous resolutions against unpopular federal development plans. The government’s inadequate response to the cyclone and floods that devastated the area in June and July 2007 has further worsened alienation. Although the crisis in Balochistan is assuming threatening dimensions, it is not irremediable provided the national and provincial elections are free and fair. The restoration of participatory representative institutions would reduce tensions between the centre and the province, empower moderate forces and marginalise extremists. In the absence of a transition to meaningful democracy, however, the military’s strong-arm tactics are bound to further fuel the insurgency, at great cost to the Baloch people and Pakistan’s enfeebled federal framework. REFERENCE: Pakistan: The Forgotten Conflict in Balochistan 22 Oct 2007 http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/pakistan/B069-pakistan-the-forgotten-conflict-in-balochistan.aspx
President Pervez Musharraf and the military are responsible for the worsening of the conflict in Balochistan. Tensions between the government and its Baloch opposition have grown because of Islamabad’s heavy-handed armed response to Baloch militancy and its refusal to negotiate demands for political and economic autonomy. The killing of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti in August 2006 sparked riots and will likely lead to more confrontation. The conflict could escalate if the government insists on seeking a military solution to what is a political problem and the international community, especially the U.S., fails to recognise the price that is involved for security in neighbouring Afghanistan. Tensions with the central government are not new to Balochistan, given the uneven distribution of power, which favors the federation at the cost of the federal units. The Baloch have long demanded a restructured relationship that would transfer powers from what is seen as an exploitative central government to the provinces. But Musharraf’s authoritarian rule has deprived them of participatory, representative avenues to articulate demands and to voice grievances. Politically and economically marginalised, many Baloch see the insurgency as a defensive response to the perceived colonisation of their province by the Punjabi-dominated military. REFERENCE: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Pakistan: The Worsening Conflict in Balochistan 14 Sep 2006 http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/pakistan/119-pakistan-the-worsening-conflict-in-balochistan.aspx
ISLAMABAD: The police, political parties and parliament have emerged as the first three top-most corrupt institutions in Pakistan while the judiciary has shown an improvement in curbing the menace of corruption, reveals the Transparency International’s 2010 Global Corruption Barometer report to be released on Thursday in Berlin. The report also reveals that 77 per cent of the people in Pakistan believe that corruption in the country has increased in the last three years whereas the dominant majority of 73 per cent thinks that the present regime has been extremely ineffective in curbing corruption. Based on a survey carried out by Gallup International on behalf of the Transparency International, the report shows the police, political parties, parliament, NGOs, private sector businesses and even media to be more corrupt in 2010 when compared to 2009. Interestingly, the judiciary, which was rated as the second-most corrupt of the seven institutions assessed last year, has come down to number six besides improving the assessment score of its perceived corruption. REFERENCE: Three top corrupt Ps of Pakistan By Ansar Abbasi Thursday, December 09, 2010 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=2552&Cat=13
Thursday, December 09, 2010, Muharram 02, 1432 A.H
http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/dec2010-daily/09-12-2010/main2.htm
Jang Group & Veracity and Integrity of Transparency International
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JLA32jSDwY
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JLA32jSDwY
Mob of Kamran Khan i.e. Mr. Ansar Abbasi, Mr Shaheen Sehbai, Mr. Irfan Siddiqui and Mohammad Malick are usually very fond of the reports of Transparency International and Survey of International Republican Institute (IRI) particularly when they carry "Corruption Reports on Pakistan. Quite funny isn't it that the same group often raise hell against US Central Intelligence, Mossad and countless others and these very journalists "conveniently" forget that such surveys/reports could be a brainchild of the Organizations on the payrolls of the same US Central Intelligence Agency and Mossad. One of the Professional Colleague Mubashir Luqman openly said Transparency International an Israeli/CIA Agent:)
ISLAMABAD: In an obvious rebuke to President Asif Zardari’s efforts to seek massive aid from the world community, the global anti-corruption watchdog, the Transparency International, issued a stinging indictment on the eve of a high-profile New York meeting of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan, saying: “How can one expect from any donor to come forward to assist Pakistan from its current financial crisis, when there exist no law against corruption.” President Zardari is to meet US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and other world leaders at the Friends of Democratic Pakistan meeting in New York on Thursday but in its 2009 Global Corruption Report, released on Wednesday, Transparency International portrays Pakistan amongst the most corrupt nations in the world. Releasing the annual report, the TI chief in Pakistan Adeel Gilani said anti-corruption efforts in the country had taken a 180 degree turn since Gen Pervez Musharraf issued the National Reconciliation Ordinance on October 5, 2007, 56 days after the ratification of the UN Convention against Corruption. The timing for the release of the TI report would be embarrassing for President Zardari, whose government’s credibility is already seriously questioned internationally because of President’s own as well as many of his government’s key players’ past plagued by serious corruption charges. Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin tried to soften the impact of the TI report by saying in his talks with US officials in New York, the US side had assured that most of the aid to Pakistan will be channelled through the federal government, although it is still not clear whether the US Congress will approve this. Transparency indicts Pakistan at critical time by Ansar Abbasi Updated at: 0947 PST, Thursday, September 24, 2009 http://www.geo.tv/9-24-2009/49665.htmhttp://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=24659
Group's/GEO TV Correspondents particularly the Mob of Kamran Khan, Ansar Abbasi, Shaheen Sehbai and Saleh Zaafir are very fond of quoting Transparency International on Pakistan's Corruption - ISLAMABAD: Foreign funding to Pakistan, especially under the Kerry-Lugar package of $7.5 billion and $170 million committed by the World Bank for the Sindh Irrigation System, may be directly hit if the government cuts its contacts with Transparency International Pakistan (TIP). The move would also, obviously, open the floodgates of corruption of billions of rupees in public sector procurement. Secretary Interior Chaudhry Qamar Zaman, when contacted, said that he was not aware of any such directive issued by the Interior Ministry. The TIP Chairman, Adil Gillani, was also clueless about this reported decision. Yet the sources warned that in case of such an eventuality, Pakistan would be a great loser at the hands of corrupt. Severing contacts with the TIP would mean undoing all those Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs), which were signed between the TIP and several major public sector enterprises to check corruption by ensuring transparency in the procurement process involving the taxpayers’ money. Besides this, these sources said that in case of the Kerry-Lugar aid package of $7.5 billion, the USAID had formally engaged the TIP, which had been assigned the task of maintaining an anti-fraud hotline and fraud awareness programme to ensure that the US funds does not go into the pockets of corrupt and the money is spent for the purpose it is given to the Government of Pakistan. REFERENCE: Cutting links with Transparency to cost billions Updated at Monday, November 22, 2010 By Ansar Abbasi http://beta.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=2200&Cat=13&dt=11/22/2010
Following are the converted Images of a ‘PDF’ Document, Originally published at website of Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the UK and Ireland AND they have questioned the very Integrity of the Transparency International and their Reports. REFERENCE: Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the UK and Ireland 1 Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2HW, http://www.venezlon.co.uk/ Tel: 020 7584 4206 1 Fact Sheet: TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL http://www.embavenez-uk.org/pdf/fs_transparency_international.pdf
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To criticize any political government whether PPP or PML - N specifically Asif Ali Zardari one shouldn't need the crutches of International Republican Institute (IRI)'s report/survey, only law and order news and rising prices of basic utilities would be more than enough to put any government in shame.
Asif Ali Zardari, President of Pakistan and Chairman PPP.
Kamran Khan the Investigative Tout of GEO/THE NEWS/JANG GROUP OF NEWSPAPERS
Nawaz Sharif, Kamran Khan, National Interest & Geo TV http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/12/nawaz-sharif-kamran-khan-national.html
But our so-called Investigative Journalist-cum- GEO TV Political Analyst (read Tout) i.e. Kamran Khan [Correspondent of The News/Jang & Former Correspondent of The Washington Pots] and many like him are so insecure that to prove their credibility they always quote ISI, Army Sources, Unnamed Political Sources, or IRI Survey.
Kamran Khan has again quoted IRI Survey.Report today in his "Alleged" Investigative Report filed in The News dated Thursday, October 29, 2009.
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Dwindling faith in President Zardari’s capacity to act as a neutral, corruption-free, nationally respected leader of Pakistan waned further early this month when the Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI), a pro-democracy group financed by the US government, reported in an in-depth survey that only about two in 10 Pakistanis carry any favourable opinion about President Zardari. As opposed to President Zardari’s terrible approval rating, the same IRI survey revealed that a big majority of Pakistanis, close to nine out of 10, hold the institution of the Pakistan Army in the highest esteem followed by the judiciary that won the support of seven out of 10 Pakistanis.Reference: Beleaguered Presidency left with single option By Kamran Khan Thursday, October 29, 2009 http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=25261
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Dwindling faith in President Zardari’s capacity to act as a neutral, corruption-free, nationally respected leader of Pakistan waned further early this month when the Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI), a pro-democracy group financed by the US government, reported in an in-depth survey that only about two in 10 Pakistanis carry any favourable opinion about President Zardari. As opposed to President Zardari’s terrible approval rating, the same IRI survey revealed that a big majority of Pakistanis, close to nine out of 10, hold the institution of the Pakistan Army in the highest esteem followed by the judiciary that won the support of seven out of 10 Pakistanis.Reference: Beleaguered Presidency left with single option By Kamran Khan Thursday, October 29, 2009 http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=25261
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The International Republican Institute (IRI), considered the international branch of the U.S. Republican Party, and one of the four “core groups” of the congressionally created and funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), apparently knew of the coup d’etat in Honduras against President Zelaya well in advance. IRI is well known for its role in the April 2002 coup d’etat against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and its funding and strategic advising of the principal organizations involved in the ouster of President Jean Bertrand Aristide of Haiti in 2004. In both cases, IRI funded and/or trained and advised political parties and groups that were implicated in the violent, undemocratic overthrow of democratically elected presidents. REFERENCE: The Role of the International Republican Institute (IRI) in the Honduran Coup The International Republican Institute talks of “coup” in Honduras, months before By Eva Golinger MONDAY, JULY 6, 2009 http://www.chavezcode.com/2009/07/role-of-international-republican.html
Let have look at the Credibility of International Republican Institute (IRI)
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A brief history of the IRI is as follows: In a bid to make the world friendlier to US interests, President Ronald Reagan (a supporter of Apartheid South Africa) called for the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy in 1983. The US, he claimed, needed an organization that would "foster the infrastructure of democracy--the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities- -which allows a people to choose their own way, to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means." As a result the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which spawned the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) were formed. NED receives about $50 Million from the US Congress. USAID requested a staggering $9.3 billion for 2007. Out of these three organizations, the IRI and USAID are the most active in the promotion of a world safe for US Democracy. The IRI at first "focused on planting the seeds of democracy in Latin America," according to its website. After the "Cold War, [it] has broadened its reach to support democracy and freedom around the globe." USAID states that U.S. foreign aid helps in "furthering America's foreign policy interests in expanding democracy and free markets while improving the lives of the citizens of the developing world."
Through what NED terms Consolidating Democracy, democratic principles and sovereignty are being violated. The NED, IRI and USAID attempt to unify opposition against a target government. They provide strategic and monetary support to the opposition. They also infiltrate university student organizations, women's and youth groups, trade unions, teacher associations and other sectors of civil society which they then into supporting the opposition parties that they have effectively turned into a coalition. Worse than instigating a coup (a top down mechanism of change), the IRI and USAID infect the very blood lines of the country by affecting "regime change" through civil society. Consolidating Democracy was successfully used in what the IRI refers to as the color revolutions in Ukraine (Orange), Georgia (Rose) and Kyrgyzstan (Tulip). In Haiti, democratically elected Aristide was overthrown using the same methods of unifying a rag-tag opposition and then mobilizing civil society behind it. But some countries such as Venezuela remain a failed target. The IRI's 2005 Programs in Africa webpage states that it "provided training for political parties in Angola to establish a strong and stable political party system, and reinforce the national reconciliation process." In Kenya it "worked with political parties to teach them how to develop positions and communicate them to voters." In Nigeria they "focused on strengthening and preparing political parties for the 2007 elections and fostering partnerships between the parities and civil groups". And in Liberia the IRI "sponsored the first-ever formal presidential candidate debates."
In September 2006, when receiving the IRI 2006 Freedom Award together with Laura Bush, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf thanked the IRI which "was particularly active in promoting [the] elections." She added that "Very quickly an office was established. They came, they did workshops. They brought political groups together. They worked with the media. They educated. They instructed. They supported. They assisted the process." She was in fact recounting the steps taken to consolidate democracy in Liberia by the foreign NGO. President Mbeki has in the past questioned to what extent South African civil society makes independent choices. This concern can be extended to the continent. For example, a Boston Globe survey "identified 159 faith-based organizations that received more than $1.7 billion in USAID prime contracts, grants and agreements from fiscal 2001 to fiscal 2005" as part of President Bush's Faith Based Initiative. The implications here are obvious. USaid has also tied acceptance of Genetically Modified food to foreign aid even in terms of disaster as in the case with Zambia in 2002. Organizations such as Oxfam have showed that GM foods in Africa would in the long run be harmful to the small scale African farmer, lead to the destruction of local food economies, create a cycle of dependency and cause more acute starvation. It was an absurd case of stopping starvation today by creating conditions for more starvation tomorrow.
And in even more direct interference with the internal economy and politics of African countries, USaid, has worked in concert with the World Bank to promote the now infamous Structural Adjustment Programs consolidated wealth for a corrupt elite while taking away education and health rights from the poor. But it is the hijacking of democratic processes by using civil society that should be of the most concern to Africans concerned with genuine democracy. The IRI and USAID don't have to win every African election they participate in – each parliamentarian and each political organization that gets a seat in the government becomes their lobbyist. In effect, they become shareholders in the new government. And as the American proverb says, "whoever pays the piper calls the tune." Reference: African Democracies for Sale By Mukoma Ngugi February 07, 2007 http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/2109
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