The Blackest Day in Kashmir: the invasion of 1947

Raiders of Kashmir

On October 22, 1947, militants backed by the Pakistan Army invaded Jammu and Kashmir

SALEEM SAMAD

The people of Jammu and Kashmir, both in Indian Administered Kashmir and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir observe Black Days on different dates.

The first Black Day was observed on October 22, 1947, when Brigadier Akbar Khan of Pakistan Army was entrusted in a top-secret invasion of the princely state Kashmir, just two months after independence of the two neighbouring countries.

Akbar Khan, a senior commander with Pakistan Army was the mastermind of the aggression of Kashmir and commanded the first-ever India-Pakistan war over Kashmir. The commander bypassed the Rawalpindi Military General Head Quarters (GHQ) when General Sir Douglas David Gracey was the C-in-C of the Pakistan Army.

The brute commander was a Second World War veteran. A war decorated by the British Army for commanding the ‘Burma Campaign’ against the Japanese invasion of South-East Asia.

Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), a landlocked disputed territory in South Asia was the reason for several wars and border skirmishes between India and Pakistan since the birth of two newly independent nations in 1947.

The war was fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1947 to 1948. It was the first of the four Indo-Pakistan wars fought between the two neighbours.

In 1846, after the Sikh defeat in the First Anglo-Sikh War, and upon the purchase of the region from the British under the Treaty of Amritsar, the Raja of Jammu, Gulab Singh, became the new ruler of Kashmir. As the partition unfolded, the Maharaja of Kashmir Hari Singh had signed a ‘Standstill Agreement’ with Mohammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan on August 12, 1947, two days before the formal independence of State for Muslims in India.

In reality, Jinnah signed the Standstill Agreements with all the princely states in Pakistan territory, including Khanate of Kalat (Balochistan), Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, Bahawalpur, Chitral, Swat, Hunza, Las Bela, Kharan, Makran, and others. Unfortunately, all the agreements were deliberately flouted by Jinnah.

According to British Raj’s agreed compliance, the princely state(s) may join any country – India or Pakistan or hold the status quo as an independent nation. The choice to merge was left entirely to the rulers of the princely states.

For most of the princely states signed a Standstill Agreement with Pakistan, the military forcibly occupied the territory and coerced into signing the treaty of accession. Balochistan is one of the many examples in the post-partition history of Pakistan.

Jawaharlal Nehru expressed doubt that the agreements signed by Jinnah would be disobeyed, but for Governor-General of Pakistan [Jinnah] confidently negated his [Nehru] suspicion.

Akbar Khan in his autobiography ‘Raiders in Kashmir’ admits that he designed a strategy under the title of “Armed Revolt inside Kashmir”.

On October 27, 1947, Jinnah ordered General David Gracey to mobilise troops into Kashmir Valley. Gracey declined with a note that all British officers had a ‘stand-down order’ from Supreme Commander Claude Auchinleck of British forces in India and Pakistan in the eventualities of war and conflict between the two countries.

Impatient Prime Minister of Pakistan Liaquat Ali Khan summoned the ambitious Brig Khan at a closed-door conference in Lahore on the tense development in Kashmir, the accession, and possible Indian military intervention. The meeting was attended by Colonel Iskander Mirza (then defence secretary, later became Governor-General) and Chaudhri Mohammad All (then Secretary-General of Muslim League, later became Prime Minister).

With full knowledge of Jinnah, the Pakistan military mobilised thousands of barbarians from the fiercest Pashtun tribes from North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) to invade Jammu and Kashmir under the command of Brig Akbar Khan.

An estimated 5,000 savage raiders armed with axes, swords, and modern rifles supplied by the Pakistan army and also military lorries were provided to capture Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir.

The raiders known as “Lashkars” (military or militia) went on a rampage. They plundered, looted, killed, and raped in the brutal invasion, which caused thousands of Kashmiri Pundits to flee the valley.

At midnight on December 30, at the behest of India, a ceasefire came into effect from January 1, 1948. Pakistan accepted the fate of Jammu and Kashmir as the issue was taken over by the United Nations. Thus Pakistan occupied Kashmir is known as “Azad Kashmir”, installing a subservient government to rule the valley. The Azad Kashmir’s puppet government has always been loyal to Rawalpindi GHQ because the powerhouse lies there, not in Islamabad.

Since the stalemate in 1948, Pakistan systematically distorted the history of Jammu and Kashmir. The false narratives are injected in school textbooks, also found documented in national museums and archives. Pakistan got away with it.

After the war, Akbar Khan fell from the grace of the Muslim League government. Liaquat Ali Khan appointed General Ayub Khan as Chief of Army Staff after General Gracey retired on January 16, 1951. Rest is history!

First published in the International Affairs Review, 24 October 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh. He is a media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

The cries of Hindus of Bangladesh

Racial riot incinerates ISKON temple in Chowmuhani, Noakhali - Photo Collected

Scores of amateur videos recorded on smartphones were uploaded on Facebook, where cries of panic-stricken Hindu women, girls and children were heard

SALEEM SAMAD

Cricket star and former captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza of the Bangladesh team posted a touching reaction on his Facebook account, rueing the mayhem and carnage carried out against the Hindu community in Bangladesh over the last few days.

The ruling Awami League lawmaker Mortaza posted a picture of the burning village in Rangpur, where hooligans torched homes of the Hindu community.

The Facebook post says: “Saw two defeats last night. One was the Bangladesh cricket team’s and that one hurt. The other one was a defeat for the whole of Bangladesh, which tore my heart to pieces.”

Bangladesh has once again plunged into racial riots during the annual Durga Puja festival since 13 October. The hooligans armed with metal bars, bamboo and batons vandalised, ransacked, desecrated temples and makeshift Durga Puja sites. They torched thousands of homes of the Hindu community and looted business establishments in half of the cities and district towns in the country.

“This isn’t the first time that minorities in Bangladesh have come under attack,” Amnesty International’s South Asia campaigner, Saad Hammadi. “Targeting religious sensitivities to stoke communal tension is one of the worst forms of human rights violation.”

Hindus of Bengal had witnessed the infamous 1946 Noakhali Riot and Kolkata Killings as prelude to the bloody partition. In 1964 a sectarian violence erupted in Bangladesh on the alleged theft of hair of Muslim’s most revered prophet Muhammad in Kashmir, India.

Of course, the genocidal campaign in 1971 by Pakistan military forces, the second such genocide after the Second World War after that of the Nazis in Germany, also hadtargeted the Hindus to exterminate them from East Bengal.

Bangladesh Hindu Unity Council @UnityCouncilBD tweeted: “We want the right to practice our religion. We want protection in our temples. We want [the] protection of Hindu women. We want the right to live in peace in our homeland Bangladesh.”

Rana Dasgupta, a lawyer and general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCUC) said “It is unfortunate that a majority of the grassroots leaders of the ruling Awami League were also seen with the rioters.”

The Unity Council lamented at a press meet in Chattagram port city said they have lost faith in the political leadership for their failure to protect the vandalism and discretion of Hindu temples and makeshift Durga Puja altar.

Well, the rioting occurred when the civil and police administration apparently did not swing into action, Dasgupta lamented. Scores of amateur videos recorded on smartphones were uploaded on Facebook, where cries of panic-stricken Hindu women, girls and children were heard.

Most eyewitnesses in social media claimed that the attire of the hooligans was in shirt and trousers, not wearing caps, sporting beard in kurta and pyjama, traditionally worn by Islamists or Madrassah students.

Months after the brutal birth of Bangladesh, the first Durga Puja festival in 1972 was attacked in capital Dhaka, Chittagong and elsewhere and police pointed fingers towards the defeated henchmen of Pakistan military forces.

Everybody believed the story. When intermittent incidents occurred almost every year, civil society, human rights groups and media paused briefly to review what went wrong with the vision of secularism and pluralism.

An estimated 3 million people were victims of racial cleansing and another 10 million people were forced to become ‘war refugees’ and took shelter in neighbouring states of India.

It was a nightmare for the Delhi government to manage the crisis. Plus hundreds of officers and soldiers revolted and joined the Mukti Bahini along with tens of thousands of barefoot guerrillas were recruited from among the students and farmers to resist the marauding Pakistan military.

The bloody war was fought and won to establish an independent Bangladesh based on secularism, pluralism and democracy.

In the fifth year of independence, the architect of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in a military putsch and thus the nation plunged into perpetual darkness.

Revival of Islamism surfaced and local henchmen indicted for crime against humanity and waging war against Bangladesh were released after the “Collaborators [of Pakistan] Act, 1972” was scraped by a military dictator General Ziaur Rahman, a liberation war hero.

Parties propagating religion was banned in the 1972 constitution. The military junta amended the law and allowed Islamist parties to function. Promptly the Jamaat-e-Islami, an active collaborator of the Pakistan military surfaced after long hibernation with new vigour and resurgence of political Islam.

In 2001 the Islamist party joined the electoral alliance with the rightist party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) led by Khaleda Zia.

Hours after the result of the unofficial elections were announced, the hooligans unleashed a countrywide reign of terror against Hindus, as well as opposition Awami League supporters. Thousands were maimed and police refused to register cases against the perpetrators.

In 1992, violence was unleashed against the Hindus by Islamists in protest against the demolition of the controversial Babri Masjid. The sectarian violence continued from December 1992 till March 1993. The 12th-century heritage Dhakeshwari temple was attacked during the racial riots.

For 20 years, the persecuted Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and Adivasis did not receive justice, not to speak of compensation.

Also, the Ahmadiyya sect of Muslims were not spared by Islamists. The ruling party remain silent and believes the Islamist version that the Ahmadiyya’s are heretic. On every Friday Jumma prayer, the Islamist march in front of the Ahmadiyya mosque chanting slogan to ban the heretics and shut down their mosque.

Nevertheless, the ripple effect has begun. And protests are being held in all educational campuses, cities major intersections and in front of the press clubs all over the country.

The 1971 liberation war veteran Sachin Karmakar, a retired Mukti Bahini commented that the successive governments in a bid to win the heart of the Islamists on their side have dug canals and invited crocodiles for the protection of their thrones. Now the hungry crocodiles are chasing us as their prey?

First published in the International Affairs Review, 19 October 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist and columnist based in Bangladesh, a media rights defender. Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com;Twitter: @saleemsamad

Majoritarian Muslims failed to protect Hindu minorities

Angry Mother (Maa) Durga

SALEEM SAMAD

Revered Fakir Lalon Shah’s 131 death anniversary was on October 16. His most popular song: “O how long are we to wait/For the birth of a society/Where castes and class and labels/Like Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Christian/Will be forgotten?/And none will be there to swindle the innocent/Pretending to be their saviour/Nor will there be bigots.”

“More than 80 special shrines set up for the Durga Puja festival were attacked, with about 150 Hindus injured and two killed,” writes the Guardian newspaper.

Many researchers dub this the worst racial riot, desecration of temples, and attacks on homes of Hindus and compare it to the post-poll violence that occurred when Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, in alliance with Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, swept into power on October 1, 2001. 

Thousands of Hindus took refuge in the neighbouring state of West Bengal, India.

If a nation is divided on the basis of religion, faith, and political ideology, it means that the country is following in the footsteps of Pakistan.

It’s a rule of the majority to dominate the society, politics and economy. Here the majority are Muslims and only about 12.73 million of the population are Hindus (8.5%) -- the rest are Buddhists, Christians, and ethnic communities.

The onus of the security and welfare of the minorities obviously rests upon the majority. The majority have a bigger slice of the state and politics. Thus, the state governed by the ruling party will have to shield the minorities and provide protection, security, and safety.

According to writer and researcher Mohiuddin Ahmad, nowhere in the world have racial strifes or sectarian violence occurred without state and politicians’ tacit indulgence, whether it be Bosnia, Gujarat, Arakan , Nasirnagar, or Delhi.

Interestingly, only hours later, the nomination of ruling party leaders allegedly responsible for instigating the strife in November 2016 has been stripped, and they cannot participate in the local government elections in Brahmanbaria.

At the first reaction, why were the two perpetrators given nominations in the first place? 

Shouldn’t those leaders responsible for selecting nominees for the local government elections seek a public apology? They must also admit their follies in compromising politics and crime.

In the last 20 years, the state has failed to bring the perpetrators and hooligans to face justice. They have enjoyed impunity, and this has caused a ripple of insecurity among the Hindus and other minorities.

Today, the civil society and citizens’ group misses the journalist and secularist Syed Abul Moksud, who was vocal on the issue of secularism, pluralism, tolerance, and hate crime. Moksud died last February, and his footprints will be found in almost all the cities, districts, towns, and villages, wherever there was strife. 

He urged the authorities to identify the criminals and prepare a list of people involved in hate crime, especially those who preached hate speech against Hindus and other minorities.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 19 October 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Why did the Accords fail to end Israeli occupation in Palestine?

Historic Oslo Accords was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat on Sept 13, 1993, in a White House ceremony presided over by United States President Bill Clinton

SALEEM SAMAD

Several factions of Palestinian organizations called for the cancellation of the Oslo Accords and the adoption of a national agenda for holding credible elections, forming a new national government, and rebuilding the state.

Recently, the Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas negated any reconciliation with the defiant Hamas militants occupying the Gaza strip unless it recognizes international resolutions. Abbas stressed that “there would be no dialogue with them (Hamas)” unless Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh responded in black and white and “[signed] with his name.”

Responding to Abbas’ conditions, Hamas spokesperson said that it would be “surrendering” to the Zionists (Israelis). He stated that “it [was] opposed with the Palestinian national consensus,” and described the PA stand as a “big obstacle” ahead of reaching national unity based on the Cairo understandings, which are being accepted by all Palestinian factions.

Hamas was born out of that Intifada uprising in the 1990s, which helped transform the entire Palestinian political landscape.

Presently, Gaza became a globally recognized symbol of resistance to aggression and the brutality of Israel’s occupation. Months after the bloody uprising, Israel was secretly negotiating with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Oslo, Norway -- which came to be known as the Oslo Accords.

The historic accord was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat on September 13, 1993, in a White House ceremony presided over by jubilant United States President Bill Clinton.

The following year, Arafat and Rabin signed the Cairo Agreement, named after the Egyptian capital. The ultimate goal of both the Oslo Accords and Cairo Agreement was a resolution to grant autonomy to the people of Palestine, whereby Israel would end its occupation in both Gaza and Jericho.

In reality, the Palestinian Authority was born and Gaza-Jericho first was hailed as the first step towards a Palestinian state and the two nations were supposed to live peacefully. But after three decades, little has changed for the Palestinians. In fact, Israel tilted to the right and the state became more aggressive in its denial of Palestinian rights.

The successive governments in Tel Aviv (later shifted to Jerusalem) have done everything possible to undermine both agreements, rendering them into pieces of paper, and causing further disadvantage to the Palestinians.

According to the Accords and subsequent agreements, Palestinians should be living in a “state” within demarcated borders and making their own decisions through a democratic process. The Accords invited the curse for the PLO and its main faction, Al Fatah (founded by Yasser Arafat), which was known as the Palestinian National Liberation Movement.

Palestinians today remain internally divided and brutally oppressed and are losing more of the land that was promised for their future state. After decades of bloodshed and violence and the grassroots rejection of the occupation by Palestinians, Israeli policymakers came to believe that Israel could not continue its failing and costly occupation.

Israel cleverly allowed the PLO to become the civilian authority of PA in a divide and rule policy, like any other colonialist. Thus, it marked a turning point in the Palestinian struggle for independence and freedom, and the ageing liberation movement turned ineffective.

Obviously, the Israeli regime is most benefitted from the division of Palestinians along factional lines despite their united goal to create a Palestinian state. Several times, Hamas hoped to join the PLO as a way of becoming recognized by Palestinians as a legitimate national government of the Palestine Authority.

In the years to come, factionalism, suspiciousness, and distrust have widened the political divide, leaving no hope for Hamas to be represented in the PLO.

Last week, Dr Mustafa Fetouri, a Libyan academic and recipient of the EU’s Freedom of the Press prize, wrote in the Middle East Monitor that many Palestinians believe Hamas did the right thing by not insisting on joining the PLO after the latter became no more than a failed and corrupt political organization.

Today, the Palestine state, dominated by the PLO, has lost its pride and historical legitimacy to become yet another failed bureaucracy. The PA is riddled with massive corruption and is on the brink of a failed state.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 12 October 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Why Bangladesh should have nothing to do with Gwadar Port

Balochistan, once an independent nation has remained occupied by Pakistan

SALEEM SAMAD

A columnist has urged that Bangladesh should use the controversial Gwadar port located in Pakistan occupied Balochistan to benefit from trade, commerce and shipping. The multi-billion-dollar port built by China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and other projects worth $62 billion as of 2020 has invited miseries and agonies for the fiercely independent Baloch ethnic community.

The occupied province of Balochistan is the only resource-rich region in a militarised nation – Pakistan. It possesses minerals including coal, sulphur, chromite, iron ore, barites, marble, quartzite, and limestone. It has the largest reserves of copper and gold in the world besides being blessed with huge oil and gas reserves. Gwadar port, it is said, has brought a new dream for the region.

The columnist possibly has undermined the political wisdom of Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina. He has failed to read the mind of Hasina.

She is presently not willing to improve diplomatic ties with Pakistan unless the country makes a public apology for war crimes committed causing deaths to three million, mostly Hindus by the Pakistan military during the bloody birth of Bangladesh independence in 1971.

The article published in Pakistan media is written based on half-hearted research and poor understanding of the region. He suggested that Bangladesh should use the Gwadar port to boost trade and can reach Western China, Central Asia, Pakistan easily.

The ambitious Silk Route project, a brainchild of China constructed a 1,300 km long expressway, the Karakoram Highway (or China-Pakistan Friendship Highway) connects two persecuted nations – the Baloch in Balochistan and Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang province in China.

On the ploy of the friendship highway to reach China, Pakistan has forcibly taken administrative control of the picturesque Gilgit-Baltistan. The princely state has borders with Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh in India and China. After reaching the border, the highway connects Xinjiang in Western China. There is no connectivity to Central Asian countries (Uzbekistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan) as Chinese hegemony has ushered in dispute with the countries of the former Soviet Union (USSR). The CPEC, a debt trap project for Pakistan, the KKH expressway is built to reach the Gwadar Port through the heartland of restive Balochistan.

Balochistan, once an independent nation has remained occupied by Pakistan with full knowledge of its founder Mohammad  Ali Jinnah. When the Baloch nation gained its independence [on 11 August 1947] from British Raj, before the independence of Pakistan, Jinnah persuaded the Khan of Kalat (Balochistan) to merge with Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the Parliament of Balochistan twice rejected the proposal of the annexation of Balochistan with Pakistan by an overwhelming majority.

Jinnah was incidentally a lawyer of Khan of Kalat and others and appeared on behalf of them in Karachi High Court. He knew the weaknesses and secrets of Kalat’s business and state properties.

Later, Jinnah succeeded in deceiving some key leaders and tribal chiefs of Balochistan in signing the agreement of their political will to merge with Pakistan.

The majority members of the Balochistan parliament condemned the action and petitioned the Pakistan government of its illegal accession agreement signed by some leaders who were dubbed as ‘betrayal’ against the Baloch.

Soon after, the Pakistan Army brutally occupied the territory on 27 March 1948, which is observed as ‘Black Day’ and the rebellion launched by mainstream tribal groups to bifurcate Balochistan from Pakistan occupation.

Pakistan security forces continue to commit atrocities in Balochistan. Tens of thousands are victims of enforced disappearances and are a regular phenomenon in restive Balochistan.

Balochistan grievances with Pakistan began from the denial of a fair share in the natural resources and the unabated persecution of Baloch ethno-nationalists.

The dirty war in Balochistan erupted after Pakistan’s military dictator Pervez Musharraf send commandos and helicopter gunship to raid the cave of ethno-separatist rebel leader Nawab Akbar Bugti was camped his military headquarters. The raid brutally killed him in 2006 and his death sparked a bloody wave of Baloch insurgency.

Islamabad often claimed that they have evidence of Indian hand and Afghanistan intelligence in the supply of weapons to the Baloch insurgents, which Delhi always denied.

In June 2020, the Pakistan National Assembly in Islamabad heard the Balochistan National Party’s Chairperson Akhtar Mengal scathing speech and asked that the province that he represents be declared “occupied Balochistan” if the state wants to continue its human rights abuses in what is currently a “no-go area” spearheaded by “death squads.” Without naming the military, Mengal castigated the crackdown in Balochistan, and the growing number of missing persons, which has reduced the locals to mere “bloody civilians.” Drawing parallels with Bosnia, Palestine, and Kashmir, the lawmaker accused the state of colonising Balochistan, rendering the blood of the Baloch “less worthy than tomatoes.”

To conclude, China has usurped Hambantota port in Sri Lanka after the latter failed to pay the debt. In near future, Gwadar port will fall through the cracks of the debt trap.  According to Pakistan’s mainstream newspapers, there are serious doubts that the ports will become a regional trade hub in the region.

First published in the International Affairs Review, 7 October 2021

The author is an independent journalist, media rights defender in Bangladesh. Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter: @saleemsamad

Rohingya: What next after Mohibullah’s killing?

SALEEM SAMAD

The reality of the presence of ARSA in Bangladesh is full of contradictions

The assassination of Rohingya refugee leader Mohammed Mohibullah in broad daylight on September 29 has shocked the world. The United Nations, the European Union, and leading human rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned the incident and demanded a judicious probe into the murder of the popular leader.

A prompt joint statement of 29 Rohingya organizations spread in Europe, North America, and Australasia, claiming that Mohibullah was shot dead by assassins belonging to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an Islamic militant outfit.

They blamed the militant Rohingya outfit for creating a reign of terror in the Rohingya camps and engaging in extortion, looting, and pilferage of relief materials, abduction for ransom, and torture of “helpless refugees.”

Mohibullah’s mission was to protect the more than a million refugees living in squalid camps in the tip of southeast Bangladesh bordering Myanmar. The refugees fled from Rakhine State after they were declared “stateless” and victims of “textbook-style genocide” by the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar armed forces.

The Rohingya militants have strong links with Jamaat-e-Islam (JeI) in Bangladesh and the militant leadership is headed by a 40-plus-year old Ataullahabu Ammar Junjuni, and has been aided and abetted by Jamaat-e-Islam. A top security agency official who is privy to the intel monitoring unit said that Bangladesh has been able to gather enough intelligence to engage in counter-terrorism operations and rout ARSA militancy.

Bangladeshi security forces intermittently raid hideouts and exchange firefights, which have significantly reduced the activities of ARSA. The military operation has forced ARSA to reduce militancy and instead mingle with the refugees.

Earlier, Bangladesh was utterly disappointed and aggrieved at Myanmar's allegation of the existence of Arakan Army and ARSA bases in Bangladesh. In a prompt media statement, the Bangladesh Ministry of Foreign Affairs protested such “baseless and provocative accusations.” 

The spokesperson for the Myanmar President's Office on January 7, 2020, had alleged that there was an existence of two Arakan Army bases and three ARSA bases in Bangladesh.

The reality of the presence of ARSA is full of contradictions. When administering the camps, their presence is reportedly visible. There is a semblance of an authority structure, but publicly acknowledging ARSA’s presence and activities within the camps could jeopardize the confidence of international aid and praises of global leaders.

A communication officer of Unicef-Bangladesh, while sharing her experience after her visit to the Rohingya camps, said that the militant outfit often barges into Brac’s community facilities, learning centres, and even child-friendly spaces and hands down fresh notes of Taka 100 and Taka 50 to each person in the centres, which causes chaos.

According to the law of the country, a refugee cannot be recruited for any paid job. Therefore, they are recruited as volunteers. Officials of the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the International Organization of Migrations (IOM), the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), and international NGOs complain that the volunteers’ lives were threatened by ARSA.

The killing of Mohibullah will continue to haunt the camp dwellers and cause worries among international bodies and rights organizations who are watching Bangladesh’s progress in the criminal investigation of the death of the Rohingya refugee leader.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 5 October 5th, 2021

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Taliban abuses cause widespread fear

SALEEM SAMAD

World leaders and international organizations are hesitant to recognize the Taliban’s government but are keeping abreast in the implementation of the Doha Agreement.

The landmark peace agreement was signed by Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and the United States on 29 February 2020. Baradar is currently the acting first deputy prime minister of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The four-page Doha Agreement is also known as the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan and to end the protracted war.

According to the compliance for peace, a comprehensive and sustainable peace agreement will include four parts, including guarantees to prevent the use of Afghan soil by any international terrorist group or individuals against the security of the United States and its allies; a timeline for the withdrawal of all American and coalition forces from Afghanistan; a political settlement resulting from intra-Afghan dialogue and negotiations between the Taliban and an inclusive negotiating team of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan; and a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire.

Unfortunately, the compliance for peacebuilding was flouted. One of the reasons was that the two major factions within the Taliban hierarchy did not agree to the peace deal with their arch enemy – the United States.

Despite the peculiar situation prevalent in cities, towns, and villages, the Taliban are ignoring the decrees of Kabul.

Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said in an interview in Kabul in the first week of September that accompaniment of a ‘mahram’ (male family member) would only be required for travels longer than three days, not for daily chores such as attending work, school, shopping, medical appointments, and other needs. Nothing is found in reality.

Taliban officials in Herat have not been consistent in carrying out the ground rules. The majority of the women lamented that Taliban fighters had stopped them on the streets, at universities, and other public places, and barred them from going about their business if they were not accompanied by a male.

The Taliban in the western city of Herat is committing widespread and serious human rights violations against women and girls, Human Rights Watch and the San Jose State University (SJSU) Human Rights Institute said.

Since taking over the city on 12 August 2021, the Taliban has instilled fear among women and girls by searching out high-profile women; denying women freedom of movement outside their homes; imposing compulsory so-called Islamic dress codes; severely curtailing access to employment and education, and restricting the right to peaceful assembly.

Several victims told the two rights organizations that their lives had been completely upended the day the Taliban took control of the city.

Immediately after the Taliban’s arrival, the women found themselves trapped indoors, afraid to leave their house without a male family accompaniment or because of dress restrictions (burqa, niqab or hijab), with their access to education and employment fundamentally changed or ended entirely.

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is likely to swing into a fresh probe into Taliban and Islamic State-Khorasan (known as IS-K or Daesh-K) ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ since 2003.

The move shows the ICC’s determination to investigate contemporary as well as past crimes against humanity.

The Hague-based ICC’s new prosecutor Karim Khan, a British QC is determined to use international law to investigate and has notified the Taliban via Afghanistan’s embassy in the Netherlands that it intends to resume an investigation.

Well, there is no reaction from the interim regime in Kabul regarding the prosecutor’s probe into crimes against humanity. This gives a message that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan will not cooperate and refuse to allow the probe delegation to visit the country.

Earlier, in April 2o2o, the ICC inquiry was deferred following a request by former Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani to enable time to collect and collate evidence in cooperation with ICC lawyers.

The probe will investigate ongoing effective domestic crimes within Afghanistan. The implications of de facto Talibanism for law enforcement and judicial activity in Afghanistan will be taken on board.

The prosecutor is likely to face the music for plans to deprioritize any alleged war crimes committed by the US and the Afghan army since they are not ongoing.

Khan argued that with the Taliban in charge of the country, there was “no longer the prospect of genuine and effective domestic investigations” and asked for permission to resume his offices’ inquiry.

One of the crimes likely to be investigated is the suicide bombing on 26 August at Kabul airport, which was claimed by IS-K.

Khan said his office would prioritize investigating alleged crimes committed by the Taliban and the IS-K, including attacks on civilians, extrajudicial executions, and the persecution of women and girls.

Well, in 2015 the ICC was unable to investigate Islamic States’ crimes against humanity in Syria since a referral would have had to come via the UN Security Council. Some Security Council’s members would have demanded ICC to investigate the crime against humanity against forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, something the Russians would have blocked using their veto on the Security Council.

First published in Pressenza IPA, 1 October 2021

SALEEM Samad is a freelance journalist and columnist, a correspondent of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and recipient of Ashoka Fellow & Hellman-Hammett Award

Much ado about financial transparency in the media

SALEEM SAMAD

Whose financial records should the BFIU really be investigating?

It’s very well understood why journalists’ professional bodies were outraged at the government’s financial transparency agency for seeking the bank details of media leaders.

On the evening of September 12, TV channels and news portals reported that media leaders gave their pro-active reactions to online newspapers and welcomed the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) of Bangladesh Bank seeking the bank account details of 11 elected journalist leaders.

The BFIU, an agency responsible for investigating suspicious transactions, sent a letter to all banks, asking them to provide account details of only the media leaders.

The following day, the National Press Club, the two factions of Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ), Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ), and Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU), in separate media statements, expressed concern over seeking financial information only of elected leaders and found the action “ill-motivated.”

Unfortunately, the journalist’s unions are divided by a thick partisan line. So is the status of the National Press Club. The contesting candidates’ panels are explicitly split between supporters of the ruling Awami League and those of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, with their all-weather ally Jamaat-e-Islam.

Possibly, the financial intelligence agency did not foresee that two factions of BFUJ, DUJ, and bipartisan leaderships in the National Press Club and DRU did not merge, but are standing shoulder to shoulder after (temporarily) burying their partisanship divide.

This is indeed a major joint movement of the factions of different unions. The leaders of BFUJ, DUJ, and DRU had jointly held protest meetings for weeks after the sensational double murder of the journalist couple Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi in 2012. The murder remains a mystery. The DRU continued to protest, while other journalist bodies silently took a back seat in demanding justice for the twin murder.

Some wonder whether it is possible to ask professional journalists for self-declarations of their assets and other sources of income for financial integrity in other professions. But who will dare to bell the cat?

There is no guideline for journalists to submit financial statements before contesting an election for any media professional body. As Dr Shadin Malik, constitutional law expert wrote in a column in Prothom Alo -- the BFIU does not have the mandate to examine the media leaders’ bank accounts. First, the BFIU was mandated to probe money laundering and terror financing. Second, the listed names are not under investigation for suspicious transactions.

Possibly, journalism is the only profession in the country where a recruit in the profession does not need to face an ethics board, appear for a written and oral exam, take an oath, or sign a code of conduct. It is expected that news organizations and scribes should remain steadfast in the principles of transparency, abide by the ethics of journalism, and sign a code of conduct.

This could only have been developed by the Press Council if professional media bodies would have taken initiative.

Often, videos surfaced on social media, showing certain journalists exploiting their positions by rubbing shoulders with state and non-state actors, compromising professional ethics.

The extravaganzas in the election campaigns by different reporters’ groups have been noticed. It’s a conspiracy of silence that the influential candidates spend generously on drink and dinner parties for the merriment of the voters.

Similarly, the spending of candidates vying for top posts in the National Press Club, BFUJ, DUJ, and DRU also becomes visible during the elections. The cash is acquired from rogue politicians, land sharks, smugglers, and even underworld criminals -- who are all hand-in-glove with those tainted journalists.

Shouldn’t the assets and bank details of such journalists, media owners, and especially TV channels be sought out by the authorities?

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 28 September 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Remands will soon be found in the museum

SALEEM SAMAD

The outspoken human rights lawyer Zahirul Islam Khan Panna assertively said that “the practice of remand will soon be found in a bolted iron cage in the museum.”

Remand, as Dr Masum Billah, a teacher of law at the Jagannath University, has said, is not found in the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), the Bible for judiciary and police crime management. The practice of obtaining remands for suspects or the accused from judicial magistrate courts is unconstitutional.

The police exercise section 167 of the CrPC, which ushers the victim into legal harassment and also intimidates victims with ill motives, flexing their political power. 

Advocate Panna did not hesitate to add that remands are mostly used for extortion from families after they hear about the police brutality the alleged accused face in police stations. From January to August of 2021, legal rights organization Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK) reported 44 deaths in judicial custody. The report points fingers at the perpetrators from the police force, elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB).

Unsurprisingly, the RAB has been blamed for 17 custodial deaths caused by torture. Next is the police for the deaths of 11 suspects, followed by the BGB (9 deaths). Most of these victims died in custody during interrogation, which has been practised since the British colonial era. 

Most senior officers of law enforcement agencies have participated in training courses in different countries on crime management, techniques of interrogation, investigation, and knowledge of forensic science vis-à-vis the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.

During the ongoing War on Terror campaign, also known as the Global War on Terrorism spearheaded by the United States in the aftermath of 9/11, hundreds of officers from the Bangladesh Police, security intelligence from the armed forces, and national intelligence attended courses on how to handle a suspect red-flagged as a terrorist. 

In addition, hundreds of police officers were deployed in peacekeeping under UN missions abroad training them in human rights. 

While in remand in November 2002, my torturer was in a UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo and the interrogator from the DGFI attended a counterterrorism course in America under the WoT program.

Many human rights researchers claim that the century-old torture in custody has significantly decreased, while rights groups say that the curve of death in custody has not straightened. 

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has continued to urge the members of the Bangladesh Police to build themselves as a “pro-people force” -- a call that could not be more appropriate for ensuring human rights and strengthening democracy. Human rights abuses are endemic and most citizens who come in contact with the police complain of corruption and torture. 

In its assessment report, the International Crisis Group stated that a successful police reform can only be sustained if it is linked to a judiciary that enforces the rule of law and effectively protects individual rights and assures citizen security. 

It warned that if the police continue to be used for political ends, it will affect democracy, law and order, crime and corruption, national security, and the economic growth in Bangladesh.

The much ado about the Police Reform Program (PRP), which was funded by the United Nations, European Union, and British DFID, is back to square one. Ironically, the pro-Islamist alliance Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami-led government scuttled the PRP. The military-backed caretaker regime resuscitated the program in 2008.

With police reforms, Bangladesh could have been a more secure and stable country, where the human rights of citizens, particularly the vulnerable and marginalized, were promoted and protected to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), economic growth, and social justice.

The police bundled up their learning experience from the police reforms initiative and instead resorted to torture in judicial custody in name of extracting “vital” information needed for their investigations. 

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 21 September 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, a media rights defender, and a recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

Winners of ‘Talibanistan’

Taliban Fighters and Truck in Kabul, August 17 2021. Wikimedia commons

SALEEM SAMAD

Dhaka: Outspoken physicist Prof Pervez Hoodbhoy is based in Pakistan. In his popular column in the Dawn newspaper, published from Karachi says that Russia and the United States are squarely responsible for Afghanistan’s tragedy but Pakistan is certainly not innocent.

The political historians cannot hold their emotion that Afghanistan is often described as the “graveyard of empires” and never have been conquered by invaders.

The British or Soviet Russia failed to dominate the ferocious nation. The fiercest tribes fought all the invaders from the Persian and Arabs. Several centuries ago, Alexander the Great (Greek) and Tamerlane (Mongol) had to pack up and head for home.

After Russia’s withdrawal in 1988, Pakistan’s military hawks in Rawalpindi trained the Taliban to take over Afghanistan following a devastating civil war with the Mujahideen.

Some apologetic security analysts argue that new Taliban’s are reformed and have graduated from barbarianism to moderate militants. Many others trashed the argument and said the Taliban leadership has not moved an inch from the radical interpretation of Sunni Islam.

The cleric’s high command moved from Qatar to Kandahar has begun to execute the strict Sharia code, which is slated as misogynist to subjugate the vibrant Afghan women, especially those tens and thousands who rose in the last two decades.

The Taliban’s occupation ushers the demise of the women in higher education, sports (football and cricket), fashion industry, musical choir and choreography, not to speak of the fate of award-winning filmmaker Roya Sadat.

Talibanistan will be a living hell for millions of Afghans who dreamt of pluralism, democracy, freedom of expression, and freedom of faith.

Taliban-wallas cannot deny their three-decade nexus with Pakistan’s spy agency ISI bonded in a trusted relationship.

Most of the families of the top Taliban leaders live in Pakistan for their security and safety coordinated by Rawalpindi.

With full knowledge of the Rawalpindi, the Taliban regime provided sanctuary to the dreaded international terror network Al-Qaeda, which launched brazen 9/11 attacks on the soil of the United States.

The emergence of the Taliban after 20 years will surely benefit other regional players from the invasion. The country is obviously a win for all who wish to see the Americans humiliated. Iran is happy to see that the United States and NATO left her neighborhood.

Obviously, the “winners” are China, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia and Turkey. Most of these countries hosted the Taliban and backed them up.

Landlocked Afghanistan, unfortunately, has two rogue states Iran and Pakistan as its neighbors. Pakistan and Iran should be held responsible for destroying Afghanistan and creating a new Talibanistan state.

Pakistan is also a winner when its Prime Minister Imran Khan said Afghans have broken the “shackles of slavery”.

Pakistan is looking forward to the Taliban joining the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

That would boost Pakistan’s ailing economy amid the Covid-19 pandemic and lack of US aid.

Christine Fair, a security pundit explains that Pakistan will continue to use 1.4 million Afghan refugees as rent-seekers from international aid organizations and sympathy of the west.

Weeks before the collapse of Kabul, both Russia and China held parleys with high-profile Taliban delegations.

Like China and Pakistan, the Russian diplomatic mission remained open in Afghanistan. Russia wants secure borders for its Central Asian allies and to stymie terrorism and drug trafficking.

The two power players, Russia and China for a century have had a love and hate relationship. They played a crucial role in the United Nations Security Council meets on the Afghanistan crisis. With Moscow and Beijing’s support, the Taliban is likely to obtain international clout.

The preceding Kabul government showed cold feet to join the “Golden Ring” nexus – proposed by China’s vision of Road and Belt Initiative (BRI) megaproject in West Asia.

Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey gave their green signal to the Chinese “Golden Ring” nexus for their superiority in South and West Asia.

The axis of evil has its eyes on energy and rich mineral resources in Afghanistan, plus transnational gas pipeline through the heartland of Talibanistan.

For now, the Afghanistan debacle is a major setback for the image of the USA globally in terms of the perception that US-backed systems tend to be as weak and temporary as the grass that greens with the spring and withers in the fall.

A humorist posted on social media writes: Taliban’s has proved HG Wells’ time-machine is possible, but the device goes backward into the 7th century, unfortunately, it does not have a fast-forward lever.

First published in Pressenza portal, 14 September 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender in Bangladesh. Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter: @saleemsamad

Remand is torture, extortion in police custody

SALEEM SAMAD

“Remand” is a common word used in crime stories in newspapers and television news, mentioned when a suspect is detained and a remand is sought from a magistrate court for further interrogation.

Each time a remand is sought, the suspect experiences torture and humiliation in police custody. Any suspect in police custody is supposed to be safe and secured. In Bangladesh, it’s dangerous for an accused person to be in police custody.

Unfortunately, this legacy has been inherited by the police from the autocratic regime of Pakistan, and Pakistan inherited it from the British colonialists, who tortured revolutionaries and activists of the Swadeshi Movement.

In November 2002, I was accused of sedition, along with other foreign journalists of Channel 4 TV. In the wee hours of Friday in the month of Ramadan, I was hauled up from my friend’s apartment in Uttara. After Jumma prayers, I was driven to the Dhaka District Judicial Magistrate court in the old town.

Four armed plainclothes policemen in an unmarked van with shotguns protruding from the windows. A decoy vehicle accompanied us to cheat the paparazzi photographers and TV cameras. Two lorries with scores of police in riot gear escorted the “person of interest.”

The Friday traffic was thin and reached the court premise quickly. I wanted to get down but was asked to stay put while the detective police officers with walkie-talkies smoked and chewed pan (betel leaves). After several minutes, an officer snarled at the policemen to board the vehicles and head towards the Detective Branch (DB) HQ at Minto Road.

The unknown magistrate granted remand for five days without my appearance at the court. That was the reality of a democratically elected regime of Begum Khaleda Zia (2001-2006), which swept back to power after the October 1, 2001 elections.

Her regime refused to tolerate any critics, dissidents, and opposition. Delinquents were severely reprimanded. The reign of terror by police and intelligence agencies was to instil fear among nonconformist citizens.

Arbitrary arrests, torture, death in custody, legal harassments, enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings were rampant. This situation further deteriorated when her administration launched “Operation Clean Heart'' in the winter of 2001-2002. World leaders and international organizations expressed grave concern over the violation of the fundamental rights of the citizens.

On return from the magistrate court, Kohinoor Miah, the deputy police commissioner of DB who had close ties with Hawa Bhaban, took me to a powerhouse outside the prime minister’s office run by Khaleda’s rogue eldest son Tarique Rahman and thrashed me with a baton wrapped with electric wires and hit my knee cap (which does not swell). After iftar, he again assaulted me and threw me on the floor and held his service revolver on my forehead and screamed that he should shoot me for defaming the country.

During five days of remand, three military officers of DGFI tortured me during interrogation and wanted me to confess a fairytale conspiracy that they had written on their storyboard. I was determined not to confess, nor did I sign any print-outs downloaded from the internet. Thus the scale of suffering increased. I was also denied food, drinking water, a toothbrush, and soap to clean after defecation.

Suddenly the torture stopped on the fourth day of the remand. A detained underworld don living in the same prisoner’s cell said that the torturer did not want to show fresh marks of torture to the magistrate.

Recently, the High Court made an exception to remand popular movie star Pori Moni three times. The judge observed that conceding multiple remand conflicts with the Supreme Court guidelines on arrests, detention and interrogation of suspects. Justice Mustafa Zaman Islam and Justice KM Zahid Sarwar Kajol said the repeated permission for remanding Pori Moni challenged the independence of the judiciary.

Veteran human rights lawyer Zahirul Islam Khan Panna told the court on a petition seeking directives that the guideline for remand is only followed by the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) during the arrests, detention, and interrogation of war crime suspects.

First published the Dhaka Tribune, 14 September 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

From guns to government

Taliban occupies Presidential Palace in Kabul on 15 August

SALEEM SAMAD

Dhaka: Let’s not discuss whether the world leaders will extend legitimacy to Kabul’s new jihadist regime, which is much ado about nothing on the promise for an inclusive government.

For both the issue, the world will have to wait for a long time to understand the political development in Afghanistan.

The century-old progressive Afghanistan was once again rechristened as ‘Talibanistan’.

The United States, Britain, European Union, also India and Bangladesh were left wondering after the so-called interim regime of Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada was announced last week.

The Taliban have not spelt out measures against counterterrorism and public policies on women rights, gender equality, higher education, amnesty for Afghan armed forces, police, judiciary, diplomats, government officials remain vague.

The freedom of expression, press freedom and freedom of assembly have become political taboo in Talibanistan and has been discarded as a western concept.

The hardliner Mullahs who have been selected to govern the country are mostly flagged by the United Nations, European Union (EU), US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and red-listed by Interpol for terrorism with links to 9/11 masterminded by dreaded Al Qaeda.

The Taliban leaders who were in exile in Qatar were often described as reformed Islamists by western media and apologists security pundits.

Each day, the sceptic observers are discovering that the Taliban’s has proved that HG Wells ‘time machine’ is a reality and not mere science fiction.

The Mullahs have succeeded in pushing the nation into the medieval age Arab Bedouins in the desserts. Taliban’s ‘time machine’ has not been designed with a fast-forward lever. Unfortunately, it will remain stranded in the 7th century in the foreseeable future, unless another bloody revolution jolts the nation from the yokes of barbarians.

The rugged mountains and lush green valley were graves of tens of thousands of foot soldiers of the invaders from the north and south. From Alexander the Great to Taimur Lang, the British, the Soviet Union and the now media agog with the American’s had to make a humiliating exit from Afghanistan.

Once a secular nation – home of various religions and cultural communities lived in harmony after the British colonialists decided to leave the Afghans alone after the Durand Line agreement 1893, which divides the Pashtuns between Afghanistan and India (now Pakistan).

After the Soviet Union’s military and political intervention in Afghanistan refused to compromise with their religious practices, language and tradition to be replaced by Marxism.

The Soviet Union (now Russia) literally wanted to spoon feed communism through a reign of terror, which was rejected and also pointed their barrels of the guns towards the Soviet Union military and oust the puppet regime.

The anger against socialism, which contradicts their conservative culture and tradition turned bloody. The villagers and warlords declared war against the Soviet Union.

The Soviets were militarily challenged by conglomerate countries and vested parties which wanted a slice of cake in strategic geopolitical hegemony.

In the conundrum, Pakistan offered its soil as a launching pad for recruitment, training and providing weapons by the United States, with the tacit support of China and Saudi Arabia.

The alliance of Mujahideen of tribal chiefs, warlords, mercenaries and dictates of Pentagon and Pakistan’s military hawks in Rawalpindi GHQ caused the regime to melt and collapsed.

Meanwhile, the ragtag foot soldiers recruited from hundreds of madrassas (Quranic schools) in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) now rechristened as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa partnered mercenaries from Bangladesh, Chechnya, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kashmir, Malaysia, Philippines, Syria and Turkey. The jihadists were trained and armed by Pakistan spy agency ISI with a one-way ticket to heaven.

The misogynist and arrogant Taliban’s gave a Sunni interpretation of Islam, enforced Sharia laws to subjugate the women, punish the critics and opposition.

Twenty years ago, the Americans came with full military might with allies from NATO militaries to hunt and punish offenders of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers. Initially, the Pentagon military invasion plans succeeded and installed a puppet regime in Kabul with western education.

More than seventy per cent of Afghans do not live in cities. Gradually the Afghans understood that politicians and the regime in Kabul were involved in widespread corruption, money laundering and plundering, while the country’s ‘mango people’ suffered poverty, hunger and deprivation.

The simmering anger was exploited by the Taliban’s leadership and tens of thousands of Afghan youths from the rugged mountains joined the jihad to oust the Kabul regime. Rest is history.

The Taliban might have made achievements in diplomacy and developing the media into confidence, but running a government headed who unfortunately does not have any experience.

The Mullahs will have to rely heavily on China, Pakistan and Iran for economic development. While the partnership with Turkey and Qatar is needed to stabilise the country sitting on a volcano.

Peace and stability will remain a far cry in Afghanistan in months to come.

First published in the India News Stream, 11 September 2021

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

Economy, hunger, drought, poverty challenges the Taliban

Taliban militants patrolling streets of Kabul - Reuters

SALEEM SAMAD

While world leaders and international organizations are eagerly awaiting for the chicken to hatch from the Taliban’s government, they have begun to implement the Islamic Sharia to govern the nation -- a harsh interpretation of Islamic law.

The stakeholder countries, including China, Iran, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, are pursuing the Taliban to form an inclusive government to unify the nation that has been riddled with civil strife, poverty, and hunger for several decades.

Qatar, UAE, and Turkey will be major partners in the operational management of Afghanistan, while China will be the development partner. The Taliban’s military partner -- a well-known secret -- is Pakistan.

Moments after the Taliban invasion of Kabul, they rechristened the country as an “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” which overrides the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan stated by the American-backed government.

The Taliban has already pressed the “factory reset” button to return to the medieval age. The Taliban’s commanders and leaders have proved that the HG Wells book The Time Machine is now a reality. Unfortunately, the Taliban’s time machine will push an entire nation back to the 7th century.

The Islamists have won the war against the giant Americans and Nato forces -- now they have to put their heads on the drawing board to govern Afghanistan. They also have to learn the best means to win public trust and confidence, which comes through ballots, not through bullets.

The crucial issue that lies ahead for the Taliban is way forward strategies in recovery from civil war, cash crunch, hunger, severe drought, and of course, poverty. The Taliban leaders have proven their ability in public diplomacy and handling the international media efficiently.

The mullahs have taken charge of a nation that relies heavily on international aid; amidst a cash crunch, that could spell disaster for the finance of the government. On the other hand, the local currency is losing value, while foreign reserves are held abroad and currently frozen.

The immediate challenge the Taliban will face is reviving the economy. Western nations are waiting to twist the arms of cleric leaders sitting in Kabul and Kandahar. The Taliban need to work out how to pay government employees and keep running crucial utility services and infrastructures such as water, power, and communications.

There is widespread suspicion among Afghans about how much the Taliban has really changed since the 1990s -- especially among religious minorities and sects like Hazara, Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians, not to speak of the future of the LGBTQ community.

Afghanistan is one of the poorest nations in the world. After the Taliban were toppled in 2001, huge amounts of foreign aid flowed into the country. International assistance was more than 40% of the Afghan GDP in 2020. Most of it is now suspended, with no guarantees about the rest.

The other challenge is the critical shortage of skilled Afghans, including bureaucrats, bankers, doctors, engineers, professors, and university graduates, all terrified of life under the Islamists.

The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian crisis, with food stocks running low because of disruptions caused by conflict. With winter approaching and the drought still ongoing, the political scenario will dent the credibility of the Taliban among Afghans who have suffered pain, and agony in the civil war.

An Egyptian-French political scientist, Samir Amin, who died at the age of 86 three years ago, aptly said: “Never have the armies of the North (the West) brought peace, prosperity, or democracy to the peoples of the South (Asia, Africa, or Latin America).”

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 7 September 2021

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

As Kabul Burns, Need To Talk About Pakistan

Taliban fighters patrols the streets of Kabul

SALEEM SAMAD

It was certain that the suicide bombings at the Kabul airport during the crucial evacuation of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals and NATO troops, was an act of the Islamic State’s “Khorasan Province” (IS-KP), the branch of the organisation in Afghanistan and Pakistan that was officially recognised by Islamic State (ISIS) “Centre” in 2015.

The IS-KP was conspicuously quiet since the fall of Kabul, and it could be understood why.

The distinction between IS-KP and Taliban is well understood by several security experts. IS-KP is a non-state actor and the Taliban is an extension of deep state Pakistan. IS-KP is backed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, which also promised to establish Islamic Khilafat.

After 20 years, the Taliban re-entered Kabul. This time driving Humvees and riding tanks fluttering their white flag with signs “Shahada” in Arabic. The gun-trotting foot soldiers captured Afghanistan without a firefight, along with the Taliban were the Haqqani Network — is just the latest iteration of Pakistan’s jihad project in Afghanistan, since 1974.

Pakistan’s dreaded spy agency ISI has recruited, trained, armed, funded, and often led the Islamist militants in Afghanistan to create a colonial dependency because the ISI believes it is in a “civilizational” war with India.

Pakistan military hawks in Rawalpindi’s conspiracy theory insist that if India wins the heart of the Taliban for the completion of the mega infrastructure projects then India will “encircle” Pakistan.

Therefore, Rawalpindi hawks want to be the first to manipulate the controls of Afghanistan.

Twenty-five years ago, Rawalpindi began recruiting, training and arming the Pashtun tribesman to form the Taliban militia, with the knowledge of Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Major General Naseerullah Khan Babar, a retired officer of Pakistan Army and also the Interior Minister in Benazir’s cabinet admitted to a Pakistan journalist Hamid Mir of GEO TV that their government handed doles and weapons to many famous Afghan rebels like Ahmad Shah Masood, Burhanuddin Rabbani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in 1975 as boss of infamous border guards, the Frontier Corps on the directives of then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, father of Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan provided weapons and training to the Afghan Mujahideen in 1975 because the Afghan government led by Sardar Daud was allegedly sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan in collaboration with India.

Many know that Pakistan recruited ethnic Pashtuns from Quranic schools (Madrassahs) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and was known as Taliban.

Pakistan undertook responsibility on behalf of the Americans to provide protection and security of the multi-billion dollar Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline (TAPI) by American energy giant Unocal.

The Taliban was deployed as “pipeline police” and the Americans paid up the militia for guarding the pipeline.

Zalmay Khalilzad, who signed the Doha agreement with Mullah Baradar in 2020, arranged a visit of Taliban leaders to Unocal offices in the US in 1997.

According to Hamid Mir, many people say that the Taliban of today are different from the Taliban of 2001. “I think they are still loyal to their old ideology, but they have learned some new tactics in the last two decades.”

The political office of the Taliban working out of Qatar does not have independent decision-making authority. Decision-making powers lie with “Rahbri Shoora” or grand consultative council and most of its members were part of the resistance inside Afghanistan.

The Supreme Leader of the Taliban, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, is the ultimate authority on religious, political and military affairs. He makes decisions in consultation with his three deputies.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a founding member of the Taliban, looks after political affairs; Mullah Yaqoob, son of Mullah Omar, is head of military affairs and also looks after southern parts of Afghanistan. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the elder son of famous Afghan guerrilla commander Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, looks after eastern parts of Afghanistan. Yaqoob and Sirajuddin are responsible for appointing provincial and district governors.

Taliban’s after the fall of Kabul announced to form a consensus unitary government in Kabul. The Taliban are very much flexible on the inclusion of all ethnic minorities, women and even non-Muslims in a new government, but have strong reservations on “western democracy”.

Nevertheless, fighting a superpower was not difficult for them. One generation defeated the Soviet Union, and another generation defeated the Americans but running a country is quite difficult.

Indeed, the Taliban can’t afford isolation and that’s why they need to address the concerns of all those countries that fear that the territory of Afghanistan will be used for terrorist activities against them.

In the last two decades, the Taliban learned to handle diplomats and media. Now they need to learn public diplomacy and the best way to win public trust comes through the ballot, not through bullets.

First published in The News Times, 2 September 2, 2021

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad