Investigation: Nuclear scandal - Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan

The Pakistani scientist who passed nuclear secrets to the world’s rogue states has been muzzled by his government. In a smuggled letter, AQ Khan reveals his side of the story

(AP/Reuters)

Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist and 'father of the Islamic bomb'

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Simon Henderson

It could be a scene from a film. On a winter’s evening, around 8pm, in a quiet suburban street in Amsterdam, a group of cars draw up. Agents of the Dutch intelligence service, the AIVD, accompanied by uniformed police, ring the bell and knock on the door of one of the houses. The occupants, an elderly couple and their unmarried daughter, are slow to come to the door. The bell-ringing becomes more insistent, the knocks sharper. When the door opens, the agents request entry but are clearly not going to take no for an answer.
The year was 2004. The raid went unreported but was part of the worldwide sweep against associates of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist and “father of the Islamic bomb”, who had just been accused of selling nuclear secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. The house belonged to one of his brothers, a retired Pakistani International Airlines manager, who lived there with his wife and daughter. The two secret agents asked the daughter for a letter she had recently received from abroad. Upstairs in her bedroom, she pulled it from a drawer. It was unopened. The agents grabbed it and told her to put on a coat and come with them.
The daughter, Kausar Khan, was taken to the local police station, although, contrary to usual practice, she was neither signed in nor signed out. The Dutch agents wanted to know why she had not opened the letter and whether she knew what was in it. She didn’t; she had merely been asked to look after it. Inside the envelope was a copy of a letter that Pakistan did not want to reach the West. The feared Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had found the letter when they searched Dr AQ Khan’s home in Islamabad. He had also passed a copy on to his daughter Dina to take to her home in London, as rumours of Khan’s “proliferation” — jargon for the dissemination of nuclear secrets — swept the world. The Pakistani ISI were furious. “Now you have got your daughter involved,” they reportedly said. “So far we have left your family alone, but don’t expect any leniency now.”
Dr Khan collapsed in sobs. Under pressure, he agreed to telephone Dina in London and ordered her to destroy the documents. He used three languages: Urdu, English and Dutch. It was code for her to obey his instructions. Dina dutifully destroyed the letter. That left the copy that was confiscated by the Dutch intelligence service in Amsterdam. I know there is at least one other copy: mine.
Just four pages long, it is an extraordinary letter, the contents of which have never been revealed before. Dated December 10, 2003, and addressed to Henny, Khan’s Dutch wife, it is handwritten, in apparent haste. It starts simply: “Darling, if the government plays any mischief with me take a tough stand.” In numbered paragraphs, it outlines Pakistan’s nuclear co-operation with China, Iran and North Korea, and also mentions Libya. It ends: “They might try to get rid of me to cover up all the things they got done by me.”
When I acquired my copy of the secret letter in 2007, I was shocked. On the third page, Khan had written: “Get in touch with Simon Henderson? and give him all the details.” He had also listed my then London address, my telephone number, fax number, mobile-phone number and the e-mail address I used at the time. It has been my luck, or fate, call it what you will, to develop a relationship with AQ Khan.
Khan became an idolised figure in Pakistan from the 1980s onwards because of his success in building a uranium-enrichment plant at Kahuta, near Islamabad. In February 2004, three years after his retirement, he was accused of proliferating nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea, and made a televised confession.
General Pervez Musharraf, at the time the ruler of Pakistan, pardoned Khan for his “crimes” but kept him under house arrest and largely incommunicado in Islamabad until February this year, when a court ordered his release. He was declared a “free man”, but in practice nothing changed.
His freedom lasted a day or so before international protests, mainly from the United States, locked him back up again. A few months ago, he was refused permission to attend his granddaughter’s high-school graduation. “I continue to be a prisoner,” Khan complained.In Washington, a State Department spokesman said that Khan remained a “proliferation risk” but, after being shut away for five years, that seemed hard to imagine. So why was he silenced? Was it because of what he did, or because of what he knows about Pakistan’s active role in spreading nuclear technology to some of the world’s worst regimes?
Any relationship with a source is fraught with potential difficulties. One doesn’t want to be blind to the chance of being used. Government officials and politicians in any country are seldom interested in the simple truth. They all have their particular story to tell. In this context, I am frankly amazed that Khan has chosen me to be his interlocutor with the world.
I have been writing about Pakistan ever since I arrived there in June 1977, sent by the BBC to be a stringer because the local man was considered to be under the thumb of the then prime minister, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (the father of the assassinated Benazir), who had held disputed elections and was facing widespread street protests.
At the time I had never heard of AQ Khan, although, it turns out, he and his family had also lived months earlier at the same small hotel in Rawalpindi where I had lodged for a while. Pakistan was already vying to be a nuclear power and America was pressuring France to stop the sale of a reprocessing plant which would have enabled Pakistan to acquire plutonium, a nuclear explosive.
I returned to London in 1978 to join the Financial Times, and was replaced by a journalist who latched on to a bigger story: that Pakistan was building a centrifuge enrichment plant to make highly enriched uranium, the alternative route to an atomic bomb. A Dutch-trained previously unknown Pakistani scientist, Dr AQ Khan, was leading the project.My intrepid replacement went to visit Khan’s nuclear construction site at Kahuta. He also found out where Khan was living and went to his home. Khan’s security guards beat him up before he reached the front door.
The FT sent me back to Pakistan to help broker a deal whereby my replacement could leave without being prosecuted. At that point, I began my own investigations of Khan, which led to a frontpage story about his purchasing network in Britain. I doubt that either Khan or the Pakistan government was happy to see the exposé.
Even so, the first time I contacted Khan, he was civil to me. It was 1986 and he had just won, on a technicality, an appeal against a Netherlands court judgment that he had attempted to steal centrifuge secrets. Although my story was not a whitewash, it did quote him accurately, and Khan wrote to me with some more information about his case. I replied, and he reciprocated. It started a “penfriendship” that has continued for 23 years and has included two visits.
At the time, I thought Khan might make a good subject for a book. I amassed material, but never thought I had enough, and was not even sure if he was interesting enough for a biography. For his part, Khan was cautious. “When I write my autobiography, Mr Henderson, I shall ask you for your help.” It wasn’t the answer I wanted.
Frankly, in news terms, there wasn’t a great deal of interest in him, even in 1998, when Pakistan first tested its 1,500-kilometre-range Ghauri missile, a Khan-directed copy of the North Korean Nodong rocket, and went on to test two nuclear weapons. In 2001, when he turned 65, he retired. We kept in touch, but it was mostly Christmas cards.
Then, in late 2003, he became the story again. I was in London, on a bicycle ride by the River Thames, when my mobile phone rang. A voice said: “I am a friend of your friend in Pakistan.” I knew my “friend” must be Khan. The voice on the line said he had been asked to call.
My “friend’s” associates were being arrested — former colleagues at KRL, the Dr AQ Khan Research Laboratories, as the Kahuta centrifuge plant was known. I asked why. The voice said “Iran” — which was attempting to go nuclear. I asked what my friend wanted me to do with the information. The voice said I should try to publish it. It might help.I explained that I was happy to listen to what I was being told, but I needed some corroboration. I told him that my friend should call or e-mail me; he didn’t have to go through the details again. As far as I was concerned, he could just say “Merry Christmas”. I cycled home quickly and took a shower. Thirty minutes later, Khan rang from Pakistan and wished me merry Christmas.
The next few weeks were turbulent. A week or so after Khan’s call to me, Libya announced that it would abandon weapons of mass destruction. Shortly afterwards, in December 2003, The Wall Street Journal revealed that a German cargo ship called BBC China had been intercepted on its way to Libya with thousands of centrifuge components, and diverted to Italy. There was a Khan link there as well, but Khan declined my request for an interview. His “friend” called to say the time was not right and Khan was exhausted after long bouts of interrogation.
Khan was placed under house arrest on February 1, 2004, and since then he has rarely been able to leave his house. What do you do when under house arrest in Islamabad? You watch the BBC on satellite television. I knew he would. So, in 2006, when Panorama came to me saying they were making a film about Khan’s role in nuclear proliferation and would I be interviewed, the answer was simple: “Yes”. I told them that, from my knowledge of Pakistan and Khan, he could not have acted without the permission and collaboration of the government.
Khan watched the programme. After that, one thing quickly led to another. I came to know of the existence of the letter, and also learnt that its contents were known to Dutch intelligence, and also to anyone they might have passed details on to — including, in all likelihood, the British and Americans.Why were Dutch intelligence agents so keen to seize it? On the face of it, the letter’s contents are a damning indictment of a generation of Pakistan’s political and military leadership, who used Khan’s nuclear and missile skills to enhance Pakistan’s diplomacy.
It was not rocket science to work out a plausible explanation for the Dutch seizure. Bloggers will probably err on the side of more imaginative conspiracy theories, but the truth is probably simpler. After the September 11 attacks, the West in general, and the United States in particular, had to work with Pakistan to counter Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in neighbouring Afghanistan. That meant that they had to work with President Musharraf, even though he was no democrat. As part of the bargain, Pakistan’s nuclear sins also needed to be placed to one side.
As sins go, they were big: Pakistan had been spreading nuclear technology for years. The first customer for one of its enrichment plants was China — which itself had supplied Pakistan with enough highly enriched uranium for two nuclear bombs in the summer of 1982.
There it was in the letter: “We put up a centrifuge plant at Hanzhong (250km southwest of Xian).” It went on: “The Chinese gave us drawings of the nuclear weapon, gave us 50kg of enriched uranium, gave us 10 tons of UF6 (natural) and 5 tons of UF6 (3%).” (UF6 is uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous feedstock for an enrichment plant.)
On Iran, the letter says: “Probably with the blessings of BB [Benazir Bhutto, who became prime minister in 1988] and [a now-retired general]? General Imtiaz [Benazir’s defence adviser, now dead] asked? me to give a set of drawings and some components to the Iranians?The names and addresses of suppliers were also given to the Iranians.”
On North Korea: “[A now-retired general] took $3million through me from the N. Koreans and asked me to give some drawings and machines.”
In late 2003, with Al-Qaeda far from vanquished in Afghanistan and Pakistan-linked centrifuge components heading towards Libya, President Musharraf was under tremendous pressure from Washington. In all likelihood, he was offered a way out: “Work with us and we will support you. Blame all the nuclear nonsense on AQ Khan.” Although Musharraf had lavished praise on Khan at a banquet in 2001, he didn’t like him personally. So the choice was simple. Khan was made a scapegoat.
Years earlier, Khan had been warned about the Pakistan army by Li Chew, the senior minister who ran China’s nuclear-weapons programme. Visiting Kahuta, Chew had said: “As long as they need the bomb, they will lick your balls. As soon as you have delivered the bomb, they will kick your balls.” In the letter to his wife, Khan rephrased things: “The bastards first used us and are now playing dirty games with us.”
George Tenet, the director of the CIA at the time of 9/11, has described Khan as “the merchant of death” and “as bad as Osama Bin Laden”. Khan has been accused of unauthorised nuclear proliferation, motivated by personal greed. On top of this, he has been depicted as overstating his contribution to Pakistan’s success in making nuclear weapons and missiles with which to threaten the whole of India.
These themes, which were repeated endlessly across the world, are now accepted as universal truths. But Khan was a government official and an adviser with ministerial status even after he retired in 2001. If his dissemination of nuclear secrets was authorised by the government, it could not be illegal and he would enjoy sovereign immunity for his actions. Pakistan is also not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), so its nuclear trades, however reprehensible, were not against international law.
Khan is adamant that he never sold nuclear secrets for personal gain. So what about the millions of dollars he reportedly made? Nothing was confiscated from him and no reported investigation turned up hidden accounts. Having planted rumours about Khan’s greed, Pakistani officials were curiously indifferent to following them through. General Musharraf told a British newspaper at the time of Khan’s arrest in 2004 that “He can keep his money”. In another interview a few months later, he said: “We don’t know where his funds are.”
But was there any money? Much was made of a “hotel”, named after Khan’s wife, Henny, built by a local tour guide with the help of money from Khan and a group of friends in Timbuktu, west Africa. It is a modest structure at best, more of a guesthouse. A weekend home at Bani Gala, outside Islamabad, where Khan went to relax, is hardly the palace that some reports have made it.
In fact, there seemed to be no money. By summer 2007, Khan was finding it difficult to make ends meet on his pension of 12,200 rupees per month (at the time about $200). After pleading with General Khalid Kidwai, the officer supervising both Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and Dr Khan, the pension was increased to $2,500 per month and there was a one-off lump-sum payment of the equivalent of $50,000. I have copies of the agreement and cheques.
As for his role in the development of Pakistan’s nuclear and missile forces, I have little doubt that Khan won the race between his KRL organisation and the official Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission to develop both a nuclear bomb and a missile system, a rivalry deliberately constructed by the dictator General Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s and sustained by later governments.
But there is a simple way to clarify matters. Pakistan’s system of national civilian honours is topped by the Nishan-i-Imtiaz (Order of Excellence), abbreviated as NI. A second tier of honour is the Hilal-i-Imtiaz (Crescent of Excellence), or HI. Khan was awarded the NI twice, a distinction never achieved before or since. He was also earlier awarded the HI. It is stretching one’s imagination to think that Khan could hijack the country’s honour system and the judgment of successive presidents.
Although the West continues to condemn Khan, Pakistan’s own energy to do so is fading, particularly since the departure of Musharraf in 2008. Frustrated by his house arrest and legal limbo, Khan has repeatedly this year pressed for remedy by the courts.
Khan was supposedly freed from house arrest in February, but the terms of that freedom were detailed in a secret “annexure A” of the court judgment, the final version of which Khan only saw later. One of the lines in the original draft that he was asked to sign was: “That in case Mr Simon Henderson or anyone else proceeds with the publication of any information or material anywhere in the world, I affirm that it would not be based on any input from me and I disown it.”
That line was eventually deleted and replaced with a more general prohibition about unnamed “specific media personnel”. Despite the court judgment specifying that the contents of the annexure “shall not be issued to the press or made public in any manner”, a copy reached me in the West.
Khan went back to court last month to challenge the terms of the annexure that he never accepted. Justice Ejaz Ahmed, the presiding judge at the Lahore high court, lifted all the curbs on his movement. “Dr Khan can come and go anywhere he pleases and no one should prevent him from doing this,” he ruled. “There should be no limitations.” Two days later another Pakistani court reimposed the ban.
America is pressing hard for Khan’s continued confinement. Deprived by Pakistan of the opportunity to interrogate Khan, the US is concerned that he may revive his old networks. Echoing the official view, The New York Times called this month for restrictions to remain on Khan for his “heinous role as maestro of the world’s largest nuclear black market”.
If Khan is free to travel and speak openly, there is a danger that he will give his own account of events, opening up a can of worms and complicating relations with Washington. Now his letter has been revealed, he hopes his story will be told differently.

How an ex-Army commando became a terrorist

By Hamid Mir

ISLAMABAD: Once he was a blue-eyed boy of President General Pervez Musharraf. He got a cash award from the president for slitting the throat of an Indian Army officer in the year 2000 but after 9/11, he became a suspected terrorist.

This terrorist was Ilyas Kashmiri, reportedly killed in a US drone attack in North Waziristan last week. US officials claimed that Ilyas Kashmiri was a senior al-Qaeda commander and his death was a huge loss for the militants fighting against the foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Very few people know that Ilyas Kashmiri was a former SSG commando of Pakistan Army. He was originally from Kotli area of Azad Kashmir. He was deputed by Pakistan Army to train the Afghan Mujahideen fighting against the Russian Army in mid-80s. He was an expert of mines supplied to Afghan Mujahideen by the US. He lost one eye during the Jihad against Russian invaders and later on he joined Harkat-e-Jihad-e-Islami of Maulvi Nabi Muhammadi.

Ilyas Kashmiri was based in Miramshah area of North Waziristan where he was working as an instructor at a training camp. After the withdrawal of Russian Army from Afghanistan, Ilyas Kashmiri was asked by Pakistani establishment to work with Kashmiri militants. He joined the Kashmir chapter of Harkatul Jihad-i-Islami in 1991. After a few years, he developed some differences with the head of HuJI Qari Saifullah Akhtar.

Ilyas Kashmiri created his own 313 Brigade in HuJI. He was once arrested by Indian Army from Poonch area of Indian held Kashmir along with Nasrullah Mansoor Langrial. He was imprisoned in different Indian jails for two years and finally he escaped from there after breaking the jail. His old friend Langrial is still imprisoned in India.

Ilyas Kashmiri became a legend after escaping from the Indian jail. It was 1998 when the Indian Army started incursions along the Line of Control and killed Pakistani civilians many times by crossing the border. Ilyas Kashmiri was given the task to attack the Indians from their back. He did it many times.

Indian Army killed 14 civilians on February 25, 2000 in Lonjot village of Nakial in Azad Kashmir. Indian commandos crossed the LoC, spent the whole night in a Pakistani village and left early morning. They slit the throats of three girls and took away their heads with them. They also kidnapped two local girls. The next morning, the heads of the kidnapped girls were thrown towards Pakistani soldiers by the Indian Army.

The very next day of this massacre, Ilyas Kashmiri conducted a guerilla operation against the Indian Army in Nakyal sector on the morning of February 26, 2000. He crossed the LoC with 25 fighters of the 313 Brigade. He surrounded a bunker of Indian Army and threw grenades inside. After one of his fighters Qudratullah lost his life, he was able to kidnap an injured officer of the Indian Army. That was not the end. He slit the throat of the kidnapped officer.

He came back to Pakistan with the head of the dead Indian Army officer in his bag and presented this head to top Army officials and later on to the then Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf, who gave him a cash award of rupees one lakh.

The pictures of Ilyas Kashmiri with the head of a dead Indian Army officer in his hands were published in some Pakistani newspapers and he became very important among the Kashmiri militants. Maulana Zahoor Ahmad Alvi of Jamia Muhammadia, Islamabad, issued a fatwa in support of slitting the throats of Indian Army officers. Those were the days when Corps Commander, Rawalpindi, Lt Gen Mehmood Ahmad, visited the training camp of Ilyas Kashmiri in Kotli and appreciated his frequent guerilla actions against the Indian Army.

His honeymoon with the Pakistan Army generals was over after the creation of Jaish-e-Muhammad. Gen Mehmood wanted Ilyas Kashmiri to join JeM and accept Maulana Masood Azhar as his leader but the one eyed militant refused to do so. The militants of JeM once attacked the training camp of Ilyas Kashmiri in Kotli but he survived that attack. His outfit was banned by Musharraf after 9/11. He was arrested after an attack on the life of Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. He was tortured during the interrogation.

The United Jihad Council led by Syed Salahuddin strongly protested the arrest of Ilyas Kashmiri and on the pressure of Kashmiri militants, Ilyas Kashmiri was released in February 2004. He was a shattered man after his release. He disassociated himself from the Kashmiri militants and remained silent for at least three years.

It was the Lal Masjid operation in July 2007, which totally changed Ilyas Kashmiri. He moved to North Waziristan where he spent many years as a Jihad instructor. This area was full of his friends and sympathisers. He reorganized his 313 Brigade and joined hands with the Taliban but he was never close to al-Qaeda leadership. He attracted many former Pakistan Army officers to join hands with him. The strength of 313 Brigade in North Waziristan was more than 3,000. Most of his fighters were hired from the Punjab, Sindh and Azad Kashmir.

It is alleged that he organised many terrorist attacks in different areas of Pakistan, including the assassination of Major General (retd) Faisal Alvi in Rawalpindi. Alvi was also from the SSG and he led the first-ever Army operation in North Waziristan in 2004.

Kashmiri planned attacks on Alvi on the demand of Taliban in North Waziristan. Sources close to his family have yet not confirmed his death in a US drone attack but there is no doubt that Ilyas Kashmiri was actually a creation of the Pakistani establishment like Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi of the banned LeT.

The Pakistani establishment abandoned and arrested most of these militant leaders without realising that they had followers all over Pakistan and they could create problems for Pakistan anytime. The establishment is still without any policy about all those who were once declared “freedom fighters” and were honored by the top Army officials like Pervez Musharraf.

What is behind U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan?

Reuters) - A U.S. drone fired a missile at a Taliban vehicle in Pakistan's North Waziristan ethnic Pashtun tribal region on the Afghan border on Monday, killing at least four militants, Pakistani intelligence officials and residents said.

Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a similar attack in the neighboring South Waziristan region, on August 5.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency operates the missile-firing Predator and Reaper drones. Here are some key facts and responses to questions raised by the strikes:

WHY DOES THE UNITED STATES ATTACK?

Many al Qaeda and Taliban members fled to northwestern Pakistan's ungoverned ethnic Pashtun belt after U.S.-led soldiers ousted Afghanistan's Taliban government in 2001. From their sanctuaries there, the militants have orchestrated insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States and Afghanistan have pressed Pakistan to eliminate the sanctuaries. Apparently frustrated by Pakistan's inability to do so, the United States is hitting the militants itself.

HOW MANY ATTACKS?

The United States has carried out about 56 drone air strikes since the start of 2008, killing about 500, including many foreign militants, according to reports from Pakistani intelligence agents, district government officials and residents.

U.S. attacks on Pakistani Taliban leader Mehsud and his men in South Waziristan picked up after the Pakistani government ordered a military offensive against him in June.

WHERE ARE THE DRONES LAUNCHED FROM?

A senior U.S. lawmaker, Senator Dianne Feinstein, told a U.S. Senate hearing in February that the drones were being flown from an air base inside Pakistan. Pakistan denied that, saying it had never granted permission for the strikes.

WHAT IS PAKISTAN'S POSITION?

Pakistan officially objects to the U.S. drone strikes, saying they violate its sovereignty. It also worries the strikes could undermine efforts to deal with militancy because the civilian casualties inflame public anger and bolster support for the fighters. Pakistan has pressed the United States to provide it with drones to allow it to conduct its own anti-militant operations.

WHAT IS THE U.S. POSITION?

The United States says the missile strikes are carried out under an agreement with Islamabad that allows Pakistani leaders to decry the attacks in public. U.S. officials said in May that Washington had given Pakistan data on militants gathered by surveillance drones in Pakistani airspace under an agreement with Islamabad.

WHO WERE THE MOST PROMINENT MILITANTS PEOPLE REPORTED

KILLED?

January 28, 2008 - A senior al Qaeda member, Abu Laith al-Libi.

July 28 - An al Qaeda chemical and biological weapons expert, Abu Khabab al-Masri.

November 22 - Rashid Rauf, a Briton with al Qaeda links and the suspected ringleader of a 2006 plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic. An Egyptian named as Abu Zubair al-Masri was also reported killed.

January 1, 2009 - Pakistani agents said a drone killed three foreign fighters. A week later, a U.S. counter-terrorism official said al Qaeda's operational chief, Usama al-Kini, and an aide had been killed. The U.S. official declined to give any details.

August 5 - U.S. drones fired missiles into Baitullah Mehsud's father-in-law's house. Pakistani and U.S. officials said Mehsud was killed in the strike, while Taliban said he had been seriously wounded and died days later.

(Compiled by Islamabad Newsroom; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

Working With Liars And Thieves

September 14, 2009: Twice in last two months, there has been rocket fire across the border in Punjab (a huge province divided between Pakistan and India). While such attacks have declined since peace talks began five years ago, the fact that they continue indicates lack of discipline in the Pakistan military, or inability to halt the operations of Islamic terrorists on their side of the border. India believes there are major terrorist training camps in Pakistani Punjab, pretending to be religious schools, and tolerated by local officials, who are either sympathetic to the Islamic radicals, or terrorized by them (or both). Pakistan has tolerated Islamic radicals for decades. This was originally thought to be a way to make the country stronger (or at least more honest and disciplined.) But that has backfired, as the Islamic radicals are more interested in fighting among themselves, or overthrowing the government to establish a religious dictatorship.

In Pakistani Waziristan, air raids and attack helicopters have killed hundreds of Taliban, and caused over 120,000 civilians to flee their homes. But the army is reluctant to advance on the ground, preferring to attack the Taliban from the air. This is giving air force jet fighter-bombers their heaviest exposure to combat operations since the 1970s. Also today, another Hellfire attack on a Taliban safe house took place, the third in a week.

Former military dictator of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf , admitted that he diverted billions of dollars worth of American military aid, meant for operations against Islamic terrorists, to build up Pakistani military forces facing India. Musharraf made no apology for this criminal behavior, saying he did it for the good of Pakistan. The U.S. has since put more restrictions on aid to Pakistan, but it is expected that the Pakistanis will continue to steal and divert American aid, and lie about it to the U.S.

Terror group builds big base under Pakistani officials' noses

BAHAWALPUR, Pakistan — A Pakistani terrorist group that's allied with al Qaida and sends jihadists to Afghanistan to fight U.S. and government troops is building a huge new base in full view of the authorities in Pakistan's most heavily populated province, locals and officials told McClatchy.

Jaish-e-Mohammad ("Army of Mohammad"), which is linked to a series of atrocities, including an attack on the Indian parliament in Delhi and the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, has walled off a 4.5-acre compound three miles outside the town of Bahawalpur in the far south of the Pakistan's heartland Punjab province.

Jaish, which the State Department designated a "foreign terrorist organization" in December 2001 and Pakistan banned in 2002, already has a headquarters and a seminary in the town's center. However, the new facility, surrounded by a high brick and mud wall, has a tiled swimming pool, stabling for more than a dozen horses, an ornamental fountain and even swings and a slide for children.

There are jihadist inscriptions painted on the inside walls, including a proclamation that "Jaish-e-Mohammad will return", alongside a picture of Delhi's historic Red Fort, implying further terrorist attacks against the Indian capital.

Riding is symbolically appealing for jihadists, who romanticize about riding into battle on horseback. Another inscription inside the compound says, in Urdu, "When God was about to create horses, he told the wind: 'I'm going to create a creature which will help my friends and bring disaster to my enemies.'"

These warriors also consider water training important, especially as most Pakistanis cannot swim. After the attack on Mumbai last year, it emerged that the terrorists had undertaken extensive water training.

Jaish — and Pakistani officials — said the facility, which is still under construction, is simply a small farm to keep cattle.

A man at the site, who wore an ammunition vest under his shirt and said his name was Abdul Jabbar, refused to let McClatchy through the entrance gates and suggested that it was time to leave.

"We're not hiding anything. Nothing happens here. We have just kept some cattle for our milk," said Jabbar, who wore the long hair that's typical of Pakistani and Afghan Taliban.

It's unclear whether the new facility will be a radical madrassa — Islamic school — or even a terrorist training camp. Nevertheless, its construction, unimpeded by Pakistan's military or intelligence service, raises new questions about how committed Pakistan is to the war on terror.

Pakistan's civilian-led central government is cracking down harder on domestic Taliban insurgents, in the northwest of the country, who seek to conquer territory at home and impose their extreme brand of Islam on Pakistanis. But the authorities seem tolerant — or even supportive — of militant groups such as Jaish whose targets are abroad: in the West, in Afghanistan or in Pakistan's archenemy, India.

Jaish members were behind a spectacular attempt to assassinate then-President Pervez Musharraf in 2004 and were involved in training and commanding Taliban guerrillas in Pakistan's Swat valley, which the military retook from Taliban control this year. Jaish, originally aimed against India, reputedly was formed with help from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) military spy agency, and many experts think the two organizations remain close.

India has demanded repeatedly that Pakistan extradite Jaish founder Masood Azhar. Islamabad claims it can't locate him, but Indian and Western intelligence agencies think he's likely to be living under official protection in a safe house in Bahawalpur.

Jaish and other Punjabi extremist groups recruit and train thousands of young men to fight Western forces in Afghanistan. Jaish ran training camps in Afghanistan until the U.S.-led invasion of that country in 2001, according to the State Department, which suspects that the group has received funds from al Qaida.

Western militants of Pakistani origin have joined Jaish, including Rashid Rauf, who was supposed to be the key contact between al Qaida and the men behind a 2006 plot to blow up transatlantic airliners; Shehzad Tanweer, one of the 2005 bombers of the London transport system; and Omar Sheikh, who was convicted of the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Bahawalpur also serves as a safe "R&R" stopover for jihadists battling in Afghanistan, Western intelligence officers said. In Bahawalpur, militants can rest and recuperate away from the U.S. unmanned aerial drones that patrol Pakistan's tribal area in the northwest.

Extremist groups in Pakistan are interlinked, and members often move among different groups. Bahawalpur and the surrounding area are important centers for other militant organizations in addition to Jaish-e-Mohammad, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the devastating 2008 attack on Mumbai; Sipah-e-Sahaba, a sectarian group linked to the killing of seven Christians last month in the Punjabi town of Gojra; and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which is perhaps al Qaida's closest ally in Pakistan.

Although there's a major Pakistani army base in Bahawalpur, the bases of Jaish and other jihadist groups in and around the town attract little attention. The regional administration is aware of the new compound but untroubled by it. According to the senior police official for the area, Mushtaq Sukhera, it's been "thoroughly searched" and nothing suspicious has been found.

Sukhera denied that there's any extremist threat in the town and said that while Jaish owns the new facility, "there's nothing over there except a few cows and horses."

"There is no problem of militancy (in south Punjab), there's no problem of Talibanization," said Sukhera. "It's just media hype."

Between 3,000 and 8,000 jihadists from southern Punjab are fighting in Afghanistan or Pakistan's western tribal area, according to independent estimates, said Ayesha Siddiqa, an analyst who's studied the area. They're often known as the "Punjabi Taliban," while the main Taliban forces are ethnic Pashtuns, the group that straddles northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"These guys (in Bahawalpur) aren't connected with a war, they don't have any ethnic affiliation with Afghanistan," said Siddiqa. "These guys are purely ideologically motivated. That makes it much more difficult to crack them during investigation or to break their will to fight."

However, the facility deeply worries some Pakistani security personnel. One officer described it as a "second center of terrorism," to complement the existing Jaish madrassa in the middle of town.

The officer, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Jaish never should have been allowed to buy the land. He said the group initially acquired 4.5 acres, then forced an adjacent landowner to sell it another two acres. "It's big enough for training purposes," he said.

Bahawalpur, which is about 420 miles south of the capital Islamabad, is a dusty, dirt-poor backwater that's sweltering in summer. The town's isolation allows it to function quietly as a center for ideological indoctrination and terrorist planning, a sort of jihadist oasis surrounded by parched fields.

There are at least 500 madrassas In Bahawalpur — more than 1,000 by some estimates — many of which teach a violent version of Islam to children who mostly are too poor to go to regular school. Promising students are dispatched to military training camps, which generally are located in far off northwestern Pakistan.

Unlike Pakistan's Taliban in the northwest, however, extremists in Bahawalpur keep a low profile. They leave alone the music shops and barbers that are the Taliban's favorite targets and don't force women to wear the all-enveloping burqa, so there's no obvious "Talibanization," as in parts of northwest Pakistan.

Militant activity in southern Punjab takes place behind high compound walls, only occasionally spilling out. Last year in April, Jaish held a massive three-day rally in Bahawalpur, sealed the entrances of the city center, locals said, and posted its own armed security guards on the streets, with no sign of the police.

Jaish openly runs an imposing madrassa in the center of Bahawalpur, called Usman-o-Ali, which is attended by hundreds of children every year. Two men stationed outside prevented McClatchy from entering the madrassa, which also has a mosque that should be open to all Muslims.

"No militancy, no military training is being imparted to students (at Usman-o-Ali)," said police officer Sukhera.

Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent.

The Next Osama

On the eighth anniversary of 9/11, it's time to finally confront al Qaeda's scary move toward modernization -- and the charismatic sheikh who is leading the way.

BY JARRET BRACHMAN | SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

Eight years after the September 11 attacks -- years that have seen many precious lives lost and an overwhelming expenditure of effort and money -- the battle against al Qaeda still continues, and it is still not clear whether America is winning or not. As I give talks on this topic to everyone from undergraduate students to counterterrorism practitioners to community groups, I am invariably asked whether there is a winner in the war on terrorism. Questioners are almost always dissatisfied with my answer: "It depends."

But this is the only answer I can give, because the terms of the question are out of date. If you're asking whether the United States has defeated al Qaeda, you also have to ask: Which al Qaeda are we talking about? The senior leaders operating somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan? The al Qaeda franchises around the world, most notably in Iraq, Algeria, and Yemen? Or the global ideological following, sparked by al Qaeda, calling itself al Qaeda, but not technically affiliated with al Qaeda? If you ask about winning, you have to also ask whether winning means killing the organization or just handicapping it. Does it refer to destroying al Qaeda's military capabilities, or to mitigating al Qaeda's ability to win hearts and minds around the world?

As these questions suggest, over the last eight years al Qaeda has undergone a metamorphosis. It has transformed from a global terrorist group into a global terrorist movement, one with its own founding fathers, well-codified doctrine, substantial and accessible corpus of literature, and deep bench of young, bright, and ambitious commanders. Attacks still matter to them, but in an era of increased counterterrorism pressure, al Qaeda is beginning to realize that it is a lot more effective at being a movement, an ideology, even a worldview. It is starting to see that terrorism is only one of many tools in its arsenal and that changing minds matters more than changing policies.

In other words, the al Qaeda that we are fighting in 2009 is not the same al Qaeda that we went to war with in 2001. Unfortunately, however, our own mindset has remained mostly unchanged.

Much of al Qaeda's evolution over the last eight years is embodied in one man, Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi, director of al Qaeda's jurisprudence committee and a likely successor to Osama bin Laden. Young, media-savvy, ideologically extreme, and masterful at justifying savage acts of terrorism with esoteric religious arguments, Abu Yahya offers the global al Qaeda movement everything that its old guard cannot.

Details about Abu Yahya's life are sparse, but a basic timeline can be pieced together from al Qaeda's published interviews with him as well as the published insights offered by his current and former colleagues. Growing up in Libya, Abu Yahya (whose real name is Muhammad Hasan Qaid but who is also known as Yunus al-Sahrawi) was a bright and affable young man. For at least a period of time, he attended Sebha University in Libya, majoring in chemistry. At some point during the late 1980s or in 1990, Abu Yahya left his home country and traveled to Afghanistan, where he settled in Logar province. During that time, he joined the nascent Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a faction of Libyans who had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan and were hellbent on violently overthrowing Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi. Abu Yahya's older brother was a senior LIFG leader.

Abu Yahya must have shown promise because, around March 1992, LIFG's leadership dispatched him to Mauritania, where he was instructed to pursue advanced religious studies under some of the country's most prominent clerics. After several years of intensive religious study, Abu Yahya returned to Afghanistan, likely around mid-1996, where he saw combat near the eastern city of Jalalabad and became a well-known religious voice within the LIFG organization. At some point between 2001 and 2002, he took up a position in Karachi, Pakistan, as a webmaster for the Taliban's Al-Imarah al-Islamiyah Web site, a job that offered him important insights into the power of new media for reaching out to young people.

He was arrested by Pakistani intelligence on May 28, 2002, and was eventually transferred to Bagram prison in Afghanistan, where he passed time by intimately studying his American captors as they aimlessly surfed the Internet or complained to him about their dysfunctional childhoods. In a June 2006 interview with al Qaeda's media outlet, As-Sahab, he said that he found American soldiers to be "cowardly," "lost and alienated," and a "mix of doctrinal, behavioral, moral, and ideological deviation." He also used the time to learn the security protocols of the prison.

On July 10, 2005, Abu Yahya and three of his fellow detainees stuffed their beds with sheets and changed out of their bright orange prison outfits into less conspicuous blue prison garb that they had hidden in their cells. The group picked the lock of their cell door and then escaped, at one point walking through the Bagram base posing as U.S. soldiers carrying furniture. Shimmying under the perimeter's concertina-wire barrier, they then journeyed for days through the Afghan countryside until finally making contact with the Taliban.

Almost immediately, Abu Yahya hit the media circuit, using his dramatic escape as a means to gain fame and infamy. His releases have included countless feature-length videos, multiple extended monographs, numerous articles, and even a published photo shoot. In many ways, al Qaeda "rolled out" Abu Yahya as a marketing firm might do a new product. And he has been welcomed with open arms by the global terrorist movement.

Whether he's shown traipsing through valleys, target shooting with his buddies, reciting poetry on a mountaintop, or breaking bread with his students, Abu Yahya seems to have made al Qaeda "cool" for a younger generation. His formal religious training has allowed him to credibly and aggressively defend al Qaeda's attacks and assail his enemies in a way that bin Laden and his deputy, the former medical doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, don't always have the theological background to do.

There is no doubt that when bin Laden and Zawahiri die or are captured, al Qaeda's global movement will look to Abu Yahya to seize the reins. He has become the obvious heir apparent. But with Abu Yahya at its helm, al Qaeda is certain to become a far more frightening enemy.

Al Qaeda's primarily Egyptian senior leadership founded and built the group on principles of elitism and secrecy. The leaders saw themselves as the vanguard, the tip of Islam's last and only spear. Their doctrine was restrictive and exclusionary. Their bureaucratic structure was stifling and micromanaging. They saw themselves as terrorists' terrorists, and acted the part.

A lifelong student with an easy smile and a gift for gab, Abu Yahya sees the world quite differently. For him, al Qaeda's fight is not just about unseating Arab governments or pushing U.S. troops out of the Middle East. In this paradigm, al Qaeda is first and foremost an intellectual and religio-ideological insurgency -- not just a terrorist group. Its goal is to capture the imagination of Muslims worldwide. Abu Yahya is not just trying to make Muslims love al Qaeda (like bin Laden tries to do) or make the "Zionist Crusaders" fear al Qaeda (like Zawahiri does). Abu Yahya's goal is nothing short of remaking Islam from the inside out, and he does so in a candid, compelling, and inherently populist fashion. In other words, what we know about how al Qaeda does business is about to completely change.

Despite the qualitatively different threat that Abu Yahya poses, however, he remains a virtual unknown outside a small circle of counterterrorism professionals in the United States. Of those who do know him, most view him as just another target. Abu Yahya's obscurity to senior policymakers -- and the similar obscurity of al Qaeda's other young guns who are modeling themselves after Abu Yahya -- is more than an oversight. It reflects a continued and pervasive ignorance across the U.S. government about the kind of war in which the United States is engaged. This is a fight in which ideas have become the new center of gravity.

If America is serious about defeating al Qaeda, U.S. government agencies will need to expand and prioritize the translation and study of strategic and ideological communiqués, which often hold the most insightful nuggets about al Qaeda's strengths and vulnerabilities. Government agencies have not been pushed to think "great thoughts," in large part because they lack the staffs and the budgets, and due to the operational necessities of their missions. This is precisely why the Barack Obama administration would be well-advised to invest serious time and money into expanding current efforts. We must combat Abu Yahya's al Qaeda today before it takes us by surprise tomorrow.

Jarret Brachman, an assistant research professor of security studies at North Dakota State University, is the author of Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice and the former director of research at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center. He blogs at www.jarretbrachman.net.

Punishing A.Q. Khan

How the world can make Pakistan's notorious nuclear smuggler pay for his crimes -- since Islamabad isn't going to.

BY LEONARD S. SPECTOR | SEPTEMBER 10, 2009

Last week, a Pakistani court lifted the requirement that A.Q. Khan, mastermind of history's most notorious international nuclear-smuggling ring, remain under police escort when traveling about the country. With Khan having been pardoned of any crimes arising from his nuclear dealings by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, and having been released after five years under house arrest last February, ending the escort requirement will leave Khan a free man, able once again to enjoy to the fullest the profits he made from his misdeeds. A higher court is reviewing the decision, but at best, it would seem, the police escort might be reinstated.

The rest of the world, however, does not have to go along with Pakistan's unseemly leniency. There are ways to punish Khan from outside Pakistan for his reckless (and highly profitable) activities, which supported nuclear weapon ambitions in Iran, Libya, and North Korea by providing equipment for enriching uranium to weapons grade and, in at least one case, details on how to fabricate a nuclear weapon.

The most potent response would be for the U.N. Security Council to impose a freeze of Khan's assets worldwide, potentially depriving him of his ill-gotten wealth. Three Security Council resolutions that seek to constrain Iran's nuclear program have demanded that Iran halt its uranium enrichment program and have required all U.N. member states -- including Pakistan -- to freeze the assets of persons designated by the Security Council "as being engaged in, directly associated with or providing support for Iran's proliferation sensitive nuclear activities." Because Tehran is currently utilizing technology that Khan provided in the country's U.N.-proscribed uranium-enrichment program, in legal terms Khan's offense can be considered a continuing one, providing the Security Council with ample basis to designate him and immobilize his financial resources.

The Security Council resolutions also bar designated individuals from traveling to any U.N. member state. If Khan were added to the list of designated individuals, this could help ensure he does not attempt to meet with former members of his ring and resuscitate his nuclear smuggling operations.

The Security Council's action, moreover, would be a powerful expression of the international community's condemnation of Khan's behavior, a painful rebuke that in itself would be a form of punishment. In addition, the asset freeze and travel ban might help deter future enablers of Iran's nuclear aspirations.

As a second avenue for penalizing Khan, Germany, Britain, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States have each prosecuted individuals who violated national export-control laws while working for the Khan nuclear-supply network. These cases could be reopened or new cases brought to include Khan as a co-conspirator. Extraditing Khan from Pakistan may be politically impractical, but issuance of an Interpol "red notice," based upon prosecuting states' arrest warrants, could serve as the basis for his provisional arrest wherever he might travel outside Pakistan, pending his extradition. (The red notice enables any country to provisionally arrest him, pending his extradition to a state where he is the subject of a prosecution.)

Civil litigation could be another avenue for punishing Khan. Extensive evidence, including statements by Musharraf, establishes that Khan sold Iran uranium-enrichment centrifuge technology. The core technology was the property of Urenco, the British-Dutch-German consortium that developed the technology, as can be readily demonstrated by a comparison of the Urenco design and technical data from the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA's) inspections of Iran's centrifuges. Because Urenco never authorized Khan to possess this highly classified technology, these facts provide ample basis for Urenco to sue Khan for misappropriation of trade secrets.

Although Khan's unauthorized taking of the technology occurred in the 1970s, only in recent years has sufficient evidence emerged via Khan's exposure and the IAEA inspections in Iran to establish the trade-secret claim in a court of law. This should excuse the long delay in bringing the suit. If Urenco were successful before a Dutch or British court, executing any judgment in states where Khan's assets were held might prove a challenge, but it is one that is not uncommon in international litigation and often overcome.

Khan's actions are not considered crimes against humanity or war crimes, in part because -- most fortunately -- his activities have not caused mass suffering. But there is a grave risk that they might lead to catastrophe in the future. One legacy of the latest developments in the Khan imbroglio should be intensified attention to making nuclear technology smuggling in violation of national laws an international crime.

In the meantime, guilty of unjust enrichment in all senses of the phrase, Khan can and should be made to pay for his actions.

Injustice of Donors against Pakistani Nation

Foreign aid has become a burden, rather than a blessing.
Pakistan is the most heavily debt country is the world with $52 billion external debts and $50 billion internal debts, total debts $102$ billion
The United States’ and Donors failure to produce aid, loan efficacy in Pakistan has put its credibility at stake

Corruption is a cancer in the body politic, a tax on the poor”. Quoting Mr. James Wolfensohn. Decades ago, Albert Hirschman likened development to the break-up of traffic jammed in a tunnel.A major chunk of our economic gains are spent on the two Ds; defense and debt-repayment. Debt is no longer a private affair because it has a political dimension also, which concerns all Pakistani nation and society. The indebtedness of Pakistan is becoming all the more unbearable because the repayments and interest payments demanded by creditors are beyond the means of poor people of Pakistan and prevent all Forms of development. This is well brought out by Alice Amsden in her latest book, Escape from Empire

In comparison, in 60-plus years here, the 167 million shareholders have been doled out a saga of broken promises, palace intrigues, brute force, denial of rights, bartering of sovereignty, abject surrenders, bogus referendums, brazen rigging, sham accountability, scandalous NROs, promiscuous cronyism, disgraceful judgments, wanton corruption, food poverty, increasing rich-poor and urban-rural divides, rampaging inflation and enveloping gloom. "It is a poor country replete with tycoons."

The former Prime Minister Chaudhry Mohammad Ali in his article, "Foreign Loans: Far Reaching Consequences," had warned the nation in clear terms: Weekly Asia, 19th Nov. 1962

The temporary impression of economic prosperity that has been created under these loans, is in fact very much like extravagant zamindar who makes merry with the loan amount spending beyond his means and when the amount of one loan is spent, he goes begging for another till he absolutely falls into the grip of the money-lender.

Even if Pakistan does not take further loans after 1969-70 the repayment of outstanding loans shall continue up to twenty first century and we shall be compelled to get fresh loans to settle earlier loans and their compound interest shall destabilize our national economy stated by Ex PM C.M.Ali

During the 1960’s, about 19 million people were counted as poverty afflicted in Pakistan 1980, the number of these poverty stricken people had risen to 34 million By 1990 it was reduced to 24 million but again it started rising and went up to 42 million in 1995 — an addition of 18 million within half a decade. Nearly one-quarter of the population is classified poor as of October 2006.

24 Jan.2009 Advisor Corporate Affairs Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF), Dr Junaid Ahmed has said that 50 percent of our population is living below poverty line and their average daily income is below 2 dollars 44 percent have no access to clean water and 42 percent without proper sanitation. Infant child mortality is 77 per 1000 persons and 44 percent children do not attend primary schools.ty to aids and loan from donors countries for keeping us poor and begging Nation on the planet.

Majority of decisions are taken at the whim or fancy of either an individual or a group of individuals who may have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The rulers here are capable of spending a billion dollars a day but not of earning it.

According to Allen McGrath, author of the Destruction of Pakistan's Democracy, when CJ Munir denied the existence of the Assembly's sovereignty, he destroyed Pakistan's existing constitutional basis. He did further harm when he did not indicate where sovereignty resided The political power of the armed forces of Pakistan is greater than the power of the elected representatives of the people as well as of the judiciary. Time and again the former have provoked their supremacy.

The World Bank highest borrowers are also the most corrupt according to Transparency International Index. Pakistan is a favorite debtor country of the World Bank (among the top 12). Between 1950 and 1999, the international donor community contributed nearly 58 billion dollars to Pakistan ten billion dollars of aid from the United States since September 11, 2001.
Contraceptive prevalence rate has remained at the same level, below 30 percent. And infant child mortality has been stagnant for the last 10 years or so.” Currently, Pakistan ranks 136 out of 177 on the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index.

The Pakistani rupee has shrunk about 25 percent this year 2008-2009
1960, Dollar was 4.76 Pakistani Rupees. 1980, dollars 9.97 Pakistani Rupees 1985, dollars was 16.28 Pakistani Rupees, 1990, dollars was 21.41 Pakistani Rupees, 1995,dollar was 30.62 Pakistani Rupees and Inflation 2000,dollars was 51.64 Pakistani Rupees,2005,dollars was 60.40 Pakistani Rupees,2009,dollars was 76.5 Rupees,

The World Bank publication "Global Development Finance 2000"*, that the maturity period of external debt decreased from 31.6 years in 1970 to 19.7 years in 1998, while the grace period declined from 11.9 years to 5.6 years. The interest rate increased from 2.8 per cent to 6.0 per cent, while the extent of grant element decreased from 59.2 per cent to 29.7 per cent during the same period

In the wake of stock market meltdown and falling value of the rupee, Pakistan’s economic managers are hoping for some external help to bail the economy out of trouble in 2009 .At the end we got $7.5 billion from IMF through Citi Bank Economic Manager Shukat Tareen new advisor on Finance to PM from USA.

The foreign debt and liabilities have increased in rupee value by more than Rs705 billon in less than six months 2008-2009,simply due to the more than 25 per cent or Rs15 per dollar decline in currency value. The country’s overall external debt stock has increased by almost $7 billion to $47 billion since June 2007.

The country’s total debt stock now hovers around Rs7 trillion, up by about Rs1.4 trillion from Rs5.6 trillion in March 2008.This includes about Rs3.4 trillion domestic loans and Rs3.6 trillion in foreign loans and liabilities

Low levels of spending in the social services and high population growth have contributed to persistent poverty and unequal income distribution

These CIA covert operation, including the organisation of military coups, are often synchronized with the imposition of IMF-World Bank macro-economic reforms

Most of this money has been embezzled by those who were in subsequent governments in Pakistan, floundered through bank debt default and spent on non-development expenditures like defense and debt servicing and the lifestyles of the policymakers and politations. All powers, authority and resources, have been usurped by an organized group of power elite.

It is clear that during the first 25 years of Pakistan's existence, Government of Pakistan had to borrow money domestically to meet its fiscal deficits From 24 million dollars at the end of the Pre-Plan period in 1954-55, it rose sharply to six times at the end of the First Plan in 1959-60, seven times over the Second Plan, about three times over the Third Plan and about two and a half times by the end of Non-Plan period in 1977-78.

The growth began to taper off during the subsequent Plans, but was still substantial: 30 percent over the Fifth Plan 1978-83, 37 percent over the Sixth Plan 1983-88, 47 percent over the Seventh Plan 1988-93. It is only in the Eighth Plan 1993-98 that the burden rose less sharply by 20 percent. But the cumulative burden had now become a hefty 22.8 billion dollar. In 2008-2009 internal debt is $50 billion

In a nut-shell, the position of Pakistan's total public debt stock (internal and external) as of 31st March, 1972 was as follows:
Internal Debt: Rs.7.62 billion
External Debt: Rs.39.85 billion
Total: Rs.47.47 billion

The present economic crisis has been largely perpetuated by a bloated defense budget that the army would find politically and internationally impossible to allocate to itself if it was ruling the country.

The generals need a civilian face to any government, if for no other reason than to ensure that the defense budget is not too seriously questioned inside and outside the country.

If we look into the list of debt defaulters and government functionaries (officials as well as politicians) who have embezzled public money and have defaulted on their bank loans, we get a glimpse of the extent to which the people of Pakistan have been robbed of their share of the nation’s wealth.

Political power and authority was snatched away by the bureaucrats and generals after the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan. The powerful bureaucrats both in Mufti and in Khaki, joined hands to seize political power

The common man bears the burden of 100 different taxes prevalent in the country but the super-rich are provided escape routes of exemptions and tax holidays, 180 of them in the payment of income tax alone

President Ayub's "Decade of Development" (1958-1968) proved a masterly piece of deception. It made the rich richer, and the poor received plenty of promises. With the breakaway of East Pakistan, Yahya Khan and his coterie of Generals were swept from power.

After the rule of two military dictators viz, Ayub and Yahya, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto became a civil dictator. A champion of the poor and downtrodden
A report of the Income Tax Department in respect of income tax paid by MNAs, Senators and MPAs from 1985 to 1993 showed that 70 per cent MNAs paid no tax at all, and only 32 paid less than Rs. 5,000 and at least 13 ministers did not pay any tax

"Borrowers, mostly from the country’s elite, are estimated to have defaulted on about 3000 billion rupees or US$ 40,220 million loans rescheduled / written Another news item states, "Loans worth of Rs 800 billion (US$ 8000 million) have been rescheduled, and many among the big defaulters have either got their loans rescheduled / written off or escaped from 1947 to 2009.

The assembly approved a law to write off loans worth billions of rupees owed by the politicians to the nationalized banks in 1985 1985 Amir Ul- Momenien-Zia and Mr Clean Junejo era

During Benazir Bhutto’s two terms in power, a total of Rs 7.23 billion loans had been written off, constituting 24.2 per cent of the loans written off — Rs 494.97 million in her first tenure and Rs 6.74 billion in the second

According to the figures compiled by the Credit Information Bureau, it was during the two tenures of Nawaz Sharif — 1990-93 and 1997-99 — that major chunks of these loans had been written off.

Two-thirds of the total loans — Rs 22.35 billion — had been written off during the two stints of Nawaz Sharif. In his first tenure, a total of Rs 2.39 billion had been written off and during his second, the amount had gone up to a staggering Rs 19.96 billion.

The loans written off during the two tenures of Nawaz Sharif constituted approximately 74.5 per cent of the total of Rs 30.018 billion written off between 1986 and 1999.

A total of Rs 59,945.17 million loans have been written off during accounting years 1999-2007, Federal Minster for Finance Syed Naveed Qamar told The National Assembly. Total of Rs 104850 millions loans were written off during 1999 year while Rs 309,190 million was written off during 2000. According detail, a total of Rs 1,004,855, Rs 627,593, Rs 627,593, Rs 1,177,139, Rs 2,348,811, Rs 1,199,808, Rs 2,004795, and Rs 2,192,121 millions loans were written off during 2001-2,3,4,5,6,7 years respectively

Those 8000 persons who are defaulters of banks for an amount Rs. 140 billion. They are the persons who evade taxes and deprive the exchequer of an annual income of Rs. 700 billion and still stay above accountability. They operate the black economy which is not accounted for and is estimated at the lowest to be Rs. 1700 billion

An economic system survives where the government has indefinitely depended on foreign loans, particularly short-term loans, to finance a part of its current expenditure. There is nothing in the (present) government’s programme that would reduce Pakistan’s dependence on increasingly expensive and scarce foreign funds.

The responsibility of the donor nations is as much as of the government of Pakistan, because they also knew of the plunder and misuse of the funds. Even still the donors close their eyes to the plunder and kept on financing all subsequent regimes and politations of the country. The people who gave these loans knew that the money wasn’t being used wisely. Perhaps they even took their cut. Yet the ordinary people have to pay back these loans.

This is the injustice of it all. The burden of our debt is immoral". The donors are as liable for these faults as much as the ruling elite of Pakistan. .Poverty-stricken people who should not be made doubly responsible for the mistakes and misconduct of others. On the one hand, finances meant for their uplift and economic development were misused and misdirected away from the people to the foreign bank accounts of the rich and powerful (ironically in the very banks of the donor nations), and on the other hand, by paying back the principal as well as the interest on the debt that they did not spent.

Those who have misused the funds should be taken to task, in what ever nation they might reside for the time being in accordance to local and international laws, so that the plundered wealth of the country can be returned to their rightful owners – the people of Pakistan.

In the 1950’s and the 1960’s approximately 70 percent of the Pakistan’s foreign aid package was non-returnable grants and only approximately 30 percent were loans and credits. Of this, about 80 percent were spent on development expenditures and only 20 per cent were spent on non-development purposes.

Somewhere in the 1980’s and the 1990’s the situation had reversed. Approximately 80 per cent of the foreign aid package for Pakistan was being spent on defense and other non-development expenditures, almost all of the foreign resources for the country were in the form of loans, credits and direct investments at quite harsh conditionalities and heavy interest rates. In the 1990’s and the year 2000 all of the foreign assistance has been spent on debt servicing. In 2000-2009 all of Foreign assistance and loan has been spent on the two Ds; defense and debt-repayment.

The World Bank (2000), Global Development Finance, Country Tables (2000), Washington, D.C. meant that 85 per cent of the new debt acquired in 1990 was devoted to debt servicing, which implied a large and rising debt burden

The external debt has gone up to $ 45 billion in June 2008 from $ 33 billion in 1999. In fact, Pakistan is the fourth largest borrower of the World Bank and fifth-largest recipient of US aid to foreign nations but even then the country has not been able to reduce external debt. Its borrowing record is littered with corruption and wasteful spending.

Despite the fact that Pakistan is spending an estimated amount of $ 4 billion on debt-servicing every year, the volume of payable debt is going up and up. The foreign debt is not coming down substantially as new loans are taken when the old loans are repaid. In the fiscal year 2006, foreign debt of $3.1 billion was repaid, but new loans of $3.05 billion were taken.

Musharraf regime had borrowed a staggering amount of over $ 15 billion since 2003. During 2003-04, the total external debt was $ 33.352 billion. Had government stopped borrowing, the debt would have declined to $ 23.646 billion after payment of principal amount by end June 2007. Pakistan’s total foreign debt and liabilities have now crossed the $45 billion mark while domestic debt had soared to Rs.400 billion by the end of June 08.Now in Feb. 2009 the External debt is $ 52 billion mark, and internal debt crossed the 500 billion Rupees mark.

The external obligations of Pakistan in December 1999 were about US$ 37 billion, out of which US$ 32 billion were external public and publicly guaranteed debt. At the same time the internal debt of Pakistan was US$ 32.5 billion. External indebtedness and internal indebtedness together shows a total of US$ 69.5 billion (total debt) which is approximately 100 % of the country’s GDP. . In plain English, the country is indebted to an approximate equal amount of what Pakistan is producing in a year.

The only change was that the younger generation of landlords had taken over from their elders.

The social background of the new members of parliament can be judged from the following figures: Landowners 117 Tribal leaders 17 Religious leaders 6 urban professionals 8 Ex-army officers 7 Student leaders 2 Businessmen 42, in 1985 Election in Pakistan .Same figure is going in Feb.2008 election, now landowners cum Industrialists sitting in NA of Pakistan. Just faces change same kin and Keith of Elite Class of ****.

The feudal families which had been discarded by the electorate in 1970 have returned to the assemblies. The National Assembly, the Senate and the four provincial assemblies were dominated by landowners. Nearly 75 per cent of the 847 members of these bodies were big landlords.

Pakistan is in a situation of a classical debt trap, where new loans are being taken in order to service old loans. A simple Debt Burden Index (DBI) tells the story. By dividing external debt as a percentage of GDP, and the debt growth rate by the GDP growth rate, we can clearly assess how heavy the debt burden has become for the nation and its people.

The per capita external debt for in Pakistan 1999-2000 was US$ 231, which in rupee terms was Rs. 13500 – an amounts which is equivalent to a month’s pay for a grade 19 Gazetted Officer in the Government of Pakistan. Debt servicing alone for the year 2000-2001 will be US$ 5671 million (Rs. 329,000 million) which is per capita US$ 41.18 or in rupee terms equal to Rs. 2,400. The per capita external debt for in Pakistan $247, 31 December 2007 Rank 52 External debts (% of GDP 9.42%) now dollars is 76.50 Rupees which is in terms of Rupees is 18500.

According to Economic Survey of Pakistan 1999-2000, the share of financial institutions (IDA, IBRD, ADB, IFAD, etc.) in total external debt of Pakistan as of 30th June 2000 was 51.9 per cent, while the share of consortium countries (Japan, USA, Germany, France, Canada, Italy, UK, Sweden etc.) was 40.3 per cent. The share of non consortium countries (Korea, China, Russia, Australia, etc.) was 5.5 per cent, while the share of Islamic countries (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Islamic Bank, Turkey, etc.) was 2.2 per cent.

Pakistan’s External Debt 30-06-2005 Multilateral Creditors (ADB, IBRD, IDA, IMF,) 16,970 (US $ Million). Bilateral Creditors (PARIS CLUB-NON-PARIS CLUB) 13,819 (US $ Million) Others Public & Publicly Guaranteed Debt (A + B + C) II. Private Sector Debt 1,906 so total Total External Debt & Liabilities $35,834 US $Millions

In 2007-08, Pakistan has added $4.2 billion to its stock of external debt without borrowing a single penny only because of depreciation of dollar versus major currencies like euro and the Japanese yen

Pakistan debt growth over the 1990 was unprecedented, but a credible debt reduction strategy and faster economic growth reduced the public debt burden from 84 percent of the GDP in 2000 to 57 percent in 2006. Interesting account that reduction in debt to GDP ratio came by way of rescheduling, a debt swap for social spending, debt cancellation and pre-payment of GDP in 2005

Similarly William Easterly has questioned the effectiveness of foreign aid and loan in reducing poverty and promoting economic growth. The complex problems of poverty of low-income societies can be solved by the home-grown rise of political and economic institutions, rather than through influx of foreign loan and aid, advisors and planners.

When a nation treads the path of economic bankruptcy then the lending countries also try to deprive it of the freedom of thinking and action. Gradual infusion of foreign powers in national affairs can culminate into a situation leading to appointment and expulsion of men in power. It is possible that the common man remains unaware of the pressure of these powers but its devastating effect continues, especially when there arises need for new loans

"Police repression and low salary are forms of having social control. When the people ask for things in a blockade or in a march and there's a kid who breaks a window, we are violent. But I ask what's more violent, a youth dying of starvation, a kid being shot from behind, or if we break a window? A window is a material thing; you can fix it, life you can't ever get back."

Although economic development ultimately makes societies better off, in the short run it creates winners and losers. As Samuel Huntington has noted, social unrest flourishes not in countries mired in poverty, but in those that are developing and changing, either for good or for ill, raising or diminishing expectations. AID effectively discourages governments from learning from and correcting their mistakes

When our own politicians and economic experts were harping in tune with American and European experts, planners, bankers and money lenders in favor of foreign aid and international investments in the name of economic development of Pakistan, so as to get us into this net, some far-sighted leaders tried that the nation should not tread this suicidal path, but it proved in vain. Today we need again to ponder deeply over what they said that the new strategy is free from past mistakes.

At the end I will Ask who will solve, the misery of poor nation from wrong doing of Donors and Mufti, Khaki, and Corrupt politician .Can we get rid of Externals and Internal debt of Pakistan. Can we will pay back the loan or our Fate will be same like Somalia, Rawnda, Burundie, or new East India Company will take over Pakistan.

Usman Karim based in Lahore Pakistan lmno25@hotmail.com

Strategic miscalculations

By Cyril Almeida
Friday, 11 Sep, 2009 | 08:17 AM PST

IF it wasn’t obvious within days of 9/11, then it should be obvious by now, eight years later: things were never going to be the same for Pakistan.

The security state’s security environment had changed irreversibly. The question was, did we have the wherewithal and nous to adjust to a new reality?

Events to date suggest that while for years we did not, the more recent record is a mixed bag of success and failure. We needed to do two things. Recognise that the time of ‘non-state actors’, terrorists, militants, call them what you will, as a policy instrument in pursuing our security agenda had passed. And recognise that the old model of exerting influence in Afghanistan had to be dismantled.

But we came up against a familiar foe: ourselves. Or more precisely, the ability of the security establishment to perhaps correctly identify all the dots but then proceed to connect them wrongly.

Bush’s America made it easy for us; for years the Americans were satisfied if we netted Al Qaeda types for them, leaving them to focus on Iraq and bungle the post-war phase in Afghanistan.

If we did eventually wake up to the dangers posed by militants who mixed and matched groups and networks for tactical purposes while trying to stitch together a common strategic aim, we only did so after they, quite literally, blew up in our face.

For those who have followed the arc of militancy and are not ideologically wedded to a state of denial, it was apparent in the ‘90s that the tail was preparing to wag the dog. Al Qaeda’s ideologues, fervent proponents of a militant transnational Islamic agenda and rabid sectarians to boot, were harnessing those we thought were, if not quite in our harness, unlikely to harm our agenda.

The first savage wake-up call to our somnambulist security policymakers in the army high command came with the attacks on Musharraf in December 2003. The second came with the orgy of violence unleashed since 2007.

Admittedly, we had helped create a mess of such epic proportions that perhaps we could not help but cherry-pick from among the militants. The Laskhar-i-Taiba, for example, has eschewed attacks inside Pakistan and its leadership remains amenable to listening with a sympathetic ear to some of the security establishment’s concerns. Decapitate its leadership, however, and you run the risk of splintering the group and untethering its more rabid elements. Better then to start with the worst offenders – the Al Qaeda types, Baitullahs, Fazlullahs, etc – than to take on everyone at the same time.

But eight years is a long time, and it’s a measure of how poorly we have fared that retaking control of Swat is regarded as a ‘victory’. Victory, properly, morally defined, should be the security of the people of this country, security from the threat of suicide bombings and fidayeen attacks, security from the risk of abductions to finance a war machine in Fata, security from the ravages of all-to-easily available drugs, security from other states needing to pump billions of dollars into the country to fight a war against elements living among us, security from the world regarding us as a danger to ourselves and a menace to everyone else.

That’s not to say we should be all warm and cuddly and just walk away from Afghanistan and ask nothing of India. We have a legitimate interest in ensuring a dispensation in Afghanistan in the long term that is reasonably amicable towards us, and it is a reality that not every combination which could emerge fits that description. And setting aside cockamamie ideas of parity with India here, there are genuine concerns that India is unwilling to conclude a peace that involves meaningful give and take and a live-and-let-each-other-grow outcome.

But there is a nagging sense that we remain hostage to the past, a pre-9/11 framework in which we regard what has become a millstone around our necks as a still-viable bargaining chip in a high-stakes game. Fine, we’ll think about pulling the plug on our policies of old and work harder with you to shut down the militant networks, but can we also talk about what you can offer us in Afghanistan and on India, we seem to be saying to the world.

The problem is, the security establishment seems unaware that it may perhaps have connected the dots wrongly. It is so sure of Pakistan’s centrality, so convinced that the Americans will not be able to engineer the outcome they desire in Afghanistan, so ready to pooh-pooh the idea that we could possibly ever be on a slippery slope towards truly losing our internal sovereignty, so sure it is playing its cards right.

But consider this: what if the Americans do succeed in Afghanistan? Succeed not in the sense of eliminating Al Qaeda or defeating the Taliban with a surge of troops as everyone seems to be debating nowadays, but succeed in a $20bn plan to build Afghanistan’s army into a force of a quarter million troops trained and equipped primarily to fight a counter-insurgency.

What if the Americans do take that plan off the drawing board, implement it and then walk away from Afghanistan with everything else remaining the same i.e. Pakistan still dreaming of its importance, the competing strategic interests of Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries still unresolved and India growing ever more friendly with Afghanistan and leery of engaging Pakistan?

Would that not be the ultimate two-front nightmare come true, the very nightmare that contributed partly to us vying to be the predominant outside influence in Afghanistan? To be sure, the Americans will not create an army that could be a match for our conventional forces, but what’s to stop a future Afghan government from building its army’s conventional strength with help from other eager countries?

Where will that leave us? Checkmated? Perhaps not, but at the very least our security policymakers will be patting themselves on the back less and holding their heads more.

cyril.a@gmail.com

Competing in Afghanistan —Dr Manzur Ejaz

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\08\12\story_12-8-2009_pg3_3

Pakistan has a certain potential edge over India because of the Pashtuns living on both sides of the border. However, Pakistan will have to use the Pashtun card differently than it has done in the past

While Pakistan failed in its delusionary policy of gaining strategic depth in Afghanistan, India is gaining broad and deep influence there. Investments of $1.6 billion and its dominance of every economic sector of Afghanistan will give India long lasting influence. And Pakistan’s Taliban proxies may not be a sufficient policy tool to balance Indian influence.

India has already constructed the 218-km Zaranj-Delaram highway to use as an alternative for Indo-Afghan trade in case Pakistan does not allow its territory to be used for the purpose. Besides building the Afghan Parliament, India has donated three Airbus airliners to Ariana, 400 buses for the public transportation system, and 105 vehicles for the Kabul municipality. India has heavily invested in several power generation projects as well, including a solar plant for the electrification of a hundred villages.

In the field of communications, India has established a modern TV studio, a 1000W TV transmitter in Jalalabad; and is setting up a mobile TV satellite uplink and five TV relay centres in Nangarhar province. In addition, India has leased a slot on its INSAT 3A satellite for RTA transmissions since 2004.

Afghanistan has also received significant amount of food aid from India. Besides rebuilding hundreds of schools and providing English teachers throughout Afghanistan, India has constructed the Maulana Abulkalam Azad Block for the Hindi and English language departments of the Languages and Literature College at Nangarhar University.

The list of Indian reconstruction ventures in Afghanistan is very long. More importantly, Indians have taken over many public service functions like the postal service and electricity distribution. Indian domination of the Afghan economy and social sector is so comprehensive that it would be almost impossible for crisis-stricken Pakistan to pose even a modest challenge.

India has been growing in double digits and has huge foreign currency reserves. Therefore, it can afford to invest a few billion dollars to further its foreign policy goals. In contrast, the Pakistani economy, much smaller in size to start with, has been stagnating or shrinking despite claims of make-believe positive growth. In addition, dealing with a civil war-like situation and anarchy all around the country, Pakistan cannot even imagine competing with the Indians in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani allegation that India is aiding subversive groups in Balochistan and other parts of the country may be well supported, but India is gaining without playing naughty. It is a universal truth that economic domination is the most powerful tool. The US, and before that the UK, dominated the world because of their economic superiority. Indian domination in the region is playing out on the same basis.

As a matter of fact, Indian economic influence in Afghanistan is surpassing the US. There are several reasons for this. Indian personnel can better adjust to Afghanistan’s environment than Americans. In addition, Indians can provide material and services at a much lower cost than the US. India has another unique edge: most of the ruling elites of Afghanistan have been educated at higher education institutions in India. Unlike Pakistan which provided madrassa education to religious minded Afghans, India provided training in modern and technical fields.

Pakistan cannot undo what is already done but it can accept the incontrovertible situation and vie for its share through streamlining its own system and genuinely compete with Indians in providing goods and services. Pakistan has a certain potential edge over India because of the Pashtuns living on both sides of the border. However, Pakistan will have to use the Pashtun card differently than it has done in the past.

Instead of seeking control over Kabul through a crude Pashtun force, religious or otherwise, Pakistan will have to consolidate and modernise its own Pashtun belt, bordering Afghanistan. If FATA and other backward Pashtun areas have better educational institutions and industrial infrastructure, Pakistan can better compete with India in providing goods and services because of geographical proximity and ethnic similarities. However, if Pakistan fails to recognise its past mistakes and continues with the same strategy, it will have an enemy country on its western borders: the Indian military may follow its economic domination in Afghanistan, and that would not be without historical precedent.

The writer can be reached at manzurejaz@yahoo.com

In Bangladesh, Ted Kennedy revered

(CNN) -- The legacy of U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, who died on Tuesday, spreads far and wide, and across the ocean to now-independent Bangladesh. There, he is still revered for calling attention to what many deemed an unfolding genocide.

Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, known as the "Lion of the Senate," died Tuesday at 77.

It may have started as a politically prudent move by a Democratic senator eyeing the White House during a Republican regime. But Kennedy stood up to the Nixon administration in 1971 and alerted the world to the bloodshed that was engulfing then-East Pakistan.

"In 1971, there were very few leaders from the so-called free world who were paying any attention to what was going on in Bangladesh. And for Ted Kennedy to come forward and to personally visit, the impact was huge," said Akku Chowdhury, founder and director of Bangladesh's Liberation War Museum.

"And that's one thing Bangladeshis have always remembered."

At the time, the U.S. policy -- directed by President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger -- was to resolutely support Pakistan, from which Bangladesh was trying to secede.

The administration's reasons: The Soviet Union and India had just signed a treaty of friendship, and Nixon was concerned about the expansion of Soviet influence in the region.

Thus, it made strategic sense for the United States to align itself with India's neighbor, Pakistan.

The United States turned a blind eye to reports of atrocities committed by the Pakistani army to suppress the independence movement -- even as U.S. diplomats urged the administration to speak up.

"Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to denounce atrocities," Consul General Archer Blood wrote in one of many telegrams from Dhaka to the U.S. State Department questioning American policy. "But we have chosen not to intervene, even morally, on the grounds that the ... conflict, in which unfortunately the overworked term 'genocide' is applicable, is purely an internal matter of a sovereign state."

The "Blood Telegram," as it came to be known, was reclassified as secret, and Blood transferred out of Dhaka.

Soon after, Kennedy traveled to east India to gauge the plight of displaced Bangladeshis -- more than 10 million of whom had sought refuge there.

On his return, he issued a scathing report to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Refugees. The report, "Crisis in South Asia," spoke of "one of the most appalling tides of human misery in modern times."

"Nothing is more clear, or more easily documented, than the systematic campaign of terror -- and its genocidal consequences -- launched by the Pakistani army on the night of March 25th," he wrote.

"All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad. America's heavy support of Islamabad is nothing short of complicity in the human and political tragedy of East Bengal."

The Nixon administration maintained its stance. But Kennedy's focus on the mass killings came as everyday Americans began to share in the outrage. For instance, Beatle George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh, the first benefit event of its kind, was staged to further highlight the plight of Bangladeshi refugees.

Besieged, the U.S. Congress pushed through a bill to ban arms sales to Pakistan.

On December 16, 1971, Bangladesh gained independence after a 10-month struggle, in which 1 million to 3 million Bengalis were killed.

"When the fighting was over, there were vultures almost too fat to fly, and Bangladesh was a land with few of the sinews of nationhood left unsevered," the National Geographic said in a piece about the birth of the country.

Two months later -- in February 1972 -- Kennedy flew to Bangladesh and delivered a speech at Dhaka University, where the killing rampage had begun a year earlier.

About 8,000 jubilant students crowded into the university courtyard and jammed lecture hall balconies and roofs, greeting him with chants of "Joi Kennedy" -- a variation on the independence slogan of "Joi Bangla."

In his speech, Kennedy drew parallels between the liberation of Bangladesh and the American Revolution. He said America had prospered despite predictions that it would collapse following independence, and so would Bangladesh.

"Even though the United States government does not recognize you, the people of the world do recognize you," Kennedy told the crowd.

On the university campus stood a banyan tree where Bengalis student leaders had planted the seeds for the independence movement -- and which the Pakistani army had destroyed as a symbolic gesture.

During his visit, Kennedy planted a new tree there.

It still stands today -- a testament to a country that overcame long odds to survive and one man who helped champion it