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 Seeking an FERC 'Humans as zoo animals' Zakat an article of faith Kashmir dispute Civilian martial law administrator Legislators' demand Tribute to Zafar Masud Mohatta Palace British Council's services HR violations in Iraq  To send a letter to the Editor Click here
I have not been shocked by the content of Zdravko Ljubas' article "Izetbegovic: Bosnia's father of the nation" because it is part of the typical anti-Izetbegovic and anti-Bosnia propaganda of which we Bosnians are perhaps more aware than the others. Ljubas' biographical data regarding Izetbegovic's life are acceptable, though he interprets them in his own way. Even when he alludes to his personal view without stating it clearly, one can still listen to the opinion of the other. But when he openly holds him and his party responsible for "further deepening ethnic conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina" that is when I felt that I had to react and remind you that both Serbia and Montenegro along with Croatia made aggression against Bosnia-Herzegovina. Izetbegovic, as head of state, had the responsibility to defend his country and its peoples. What Mr Ljubas wants to do here is to say that Izetbegovic and his party were equal to the aggressive regimes of Belgrade and Zagreb. He wants to even out the victim with its aggressor. That is not acceptable. Mr Ljubas further wants to fortify this point by deliberately omitting that "200,000 Bosnian citizens who were killed" were in fact overwhelmingly Bosnian Muslim civilians. But he does not fail to create confusion that Izetbegovic wanted to establish "a country organized under Islamic laws", and that his party was "based on ethnic principles" which is, of course, not true. Izetbegovic only wanted to secure the civil, democratic and human rights of all Bosnian citizens regardless of their religion, nationality and other diversities. I don't understand how can that have any relation with "a country based on Islamic laws". In his party many non-Bosnians held, and still hold, high positions, which shows that it is not exclusively ethnically based. Similarly, the name of the Party of Democratic Action (and not the Muslim Party of Democratic Action, as Mr Ljubas points out) does not have any national prerogatives. Also, Mr Ljubas is not accurate when talking about Bosnia's independence. Bosnia-Herzegovina enjoyed this status even in former Yugoslavia (not to mention its continuous independence which, in various legal forms, stretches over a thousand years) but, perhaps, what he meant was the plebiscite held on February 29, 1992, in which the citizens of Bosnia (not Izetbegovic) decided to separate from Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia without Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia, which had already left the Yugoslav federation, was not the same Yugoslavia anymore. That was only Serbia and Montenegro. Bosnians did not like to stay in such "Yugoslavia" in which hegemonic Serbian leader Milosevic would dictate. Moreover, Mr Ljubas forgot to mention Izetbegovic's personal efforts to retain Yugoslavia with its six republics. These and many other points, regarding Izetbegovic and Bosnia-Herzegovina, are of crucial value for the sake of truth, which must be provided to the Pakistani reader. Therefore, I wonder if Dawn could have been more careful in selecting Mr Ljubas' article for this sad occasion. And I suggest that Mr Zdravko Ljubas' articles regarding Bosnia-Herzegovina be not published in Dawn in the future due to his obvious bias. AVDO-ABDULLAH HODZIC Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Pakistan, Islamabad  Seeking an FERC The government has introduced a number of schemes to induce overseas Pakistanis to send remittances legally to their home country. One of these schemes is the issuance of Foreign Exchange Remittance Card. Influenced with the moral obligation to participate in the development of the country, I remitted thousands of dollars from the US and applied for an FERC. When I did not receive any response even after several months, I sent an email inquiring about my card. I got a prompt reply informing me that my Gold Card had been sent to me through the "embassy" of Pakistan in Houston, Texas. But the fact is that there is no Pakistani embassy in Houston and there has never been one there. On my updating the knowledge of the Overseas Pakistani Foundation, I was informed that my card had been sent to the embassy of Pakistan in Washington and not to Houston. I was also given the telephone and fax numbers of the embassy and was asked to inquire about my Gold Card from the embassy directly. All those numbers were either wrong or non-working. It is highly deplorable that our overseas foundation does not know where the Pakistani embassies are and what their contact numbers are. Somehow I contacted the Washington embassy and was told that the card had been mailed to me at my US address a long time ago. In the US, domestic mail does not take longer than three days and all undelivered mails are returned to their addressers. My several long-distance calls to Washington did not bear any result and I did not get even the promised photocopy of my card. Depressed and highly discouraged, I came back to Pakistan to get my Gold Card. I wrote a letter to the federal minister for labour and sent its copy to the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation, and though it has been over a month, I have not received any response yet. If this is the performance and efficiency of one of the most important ministries in Pakistan, what foreign investors and overseas Pakistanis can expect from other government departments? NAVAID M. KHAN Karachi 'Humans as zoo animals' Terrorists. What are we going to do with them? Mr Omar Kureishi (Oct 21) points out that terrorists, by virtue of the choices they make in pursuing death and destruction, present legal difficulties to world bodies trying to protect their citizens. It is this difficulty which may open doors. At present terrorists do not fight for recognized governments, they do not fight in uniform and they are not signatory to the international accords which protect and provide legal rights for soldiers serving in the armies of their respective countries. For the guy found carrying a bag of explosives, heading for a day-care centre, this is bad news. Authorities will want to know why he is carrying explosives. They will want to know who he is and how he came by the explosives. The poor guy will probably have been told by his superiors not to answer any questions. This can't be allowed to continue. Major nations around the globe need to speak up about this legal limbo. Pressure needs to be applied to Al Qaeda, Taliban, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups to stop endangering their troops. First, get their guys in clearly recognizable uniforms and become signatories to the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements covering legal status for combatants and providing rules on how warfare is to be conducted. Secondly, establish some real training programmes. Sending these guys into the field without proper military and ethical training is inexcusable. Some of these guys are running around in women's clothes and attacking civilians. They're out of control. Lastly, get their legal departments working with Red Cross to document the captured soldiers and see to their safe-keeping until repatriation after the war. One cannot just sit around complaining. It's time for these leaders to shape up and get with the programme. War and death have been a human hobby for millennia. If you can't play by the rules, get off the field. DAVID LOCKHORN Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Zakat an article of faith Dispensation of social justice in all human dealings can aptly be described as spirituality. Thus, the system of Zakat is an article of faith with us. It is a constitutional obligation for any voluntary agency to get its accounts audited. This being carried out by government auditors for the present has impaired the transparency of Zakat audit. It is also violative of the Zakat and Ushr Ordinance, originally enforced in 1980. In order, therefore, to avoid such a situation, the existing Zakat audit system warrants immediate moveover to neutral accountability in which both the government and Zakat subscribers are required to be satisfied that the amounts thus contributed by them see their way to the poor and the needy. All good acts are meaningless in the absence of proper faith. And faith is an affair of heart. The most important message of Ramazan is that we are not just body, we are both the body and the heart. Further, what makes us human beings and determines our value as human beings is the heart and not the body. During Ramazan we deprive the body to uplift the heart. And this simple factor if appreciated/restored on our part is bound to bring about radical changes in our moral, material and spiritual foundation of Zakat, which establishes direct link with Allah Almighty, and each individual thereby makes an intercessor (auditor in term of audit) unnecessary. In addition, it brings about all the five pillars of Islam at par with each other on a self-assessment basis by implementing spirituality in letter and in spirit for the sole purpose of seeking mercy of Allah Almighty during the month of Ramazan. HAJI HAMID ALI QURESHI Karachi Kashmir dispute This is with reference to Mr Salahuddin K. Leghari's letter "Kashmir - some misconceptions" (Oct 19). The Simla Agreement itself reaffirms in paragraph six that "a final settlement of Jummu and Kashmir" is an outstanding question and establishment of durable peace between the two countries is contingent on the resolution of this question. Apropos of Mr Gandhi's non-violence policy, Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, in their book "Freedom at Mid-night", write: "To the British bureaucrats, whose hour of departure he'd hastened, he (Gandhi) was a conniving politician, a bogus Messiah whose non-violent crusade always ended in violence and whose fasts into death always stopped short of death's door. Even a man as kind-hearted as Wavell detested him as a 'Malevolent old Politician.... Shrewd, obstinate, domineering double-tongued,' with little true saintliness in him. "Few of the English who'd negotiated with Gandhi liked him, fewer still had understood him. Their puzzlement was understandable. He was a strange blend of great moral principles and quirky obsessions. He was quite capable of interrupting their serious political discussion with a discourse on the benefits of sexual continence or a daily salt and water enema." HAJI ESSA KATCHI Karachi Civilian martial law administrator In his letter "Civilian martial law administrator" (Oct 18), Mr R. H. Usmani has contested Mr Roedad Khan's statement made in his article (Oct 17) that Pakistan's breakup was a direct consequence of the imposition of martial law by Ayub Khan in 1958. I agree with Mr Roedad Khan for the following reasons. The merit of the 1956 Constitution was that it was produced after an agreement with East Pakistan leaders such as A. K. Fazlul Haq and H. S. Suhrawardy. Its abrogation confirmed the worst fears of East Pakistani opinion-makers which they had started entertaining earlier, noticing some straws in the wind blowing at the centre. Three of their prime ministers, Khwaja Nazimuddin, Mohammad Ali Bogra and Suhrawardy, had either been dismissed or manoeuvred out of office by the West Pakistani power elite. Ayub's martial law turned out to be the proverbial last straw. This was the impression I gathered some 10 years later when I served in East Pakistan as a federal government official in a position which brought me in contact with intellectuals, writers and journalists of that wing. In their perception, the abrogation of the 1956 Constitution was an unmistakable signal that the West Pakistani power elite was not prepared to share power with East Pakistan, even on a 50-50 basis. One frequently heard East Pakistan being referred to as a "colony" of West Pakistan, which showed how the relationship between the two wings was perceived. As for Mr Usmani's assertion that Yahya had accepted the result of the election and had referred to Mujibur Rahman as the next prime minister, it was a hoax. If he did so, why did he resort to army action and destroy all hopes of reconciliation? In fact, he did not want to part with power. He did so only when his commander of the army in East Pakistan surrendered. The "democratic process" was not derailed by Bhutto as Mr Usmani says; it was derailed by Ayub in October 1958 who later gave the system of controlled democracy under the 1962 Constitution. This limited and controlled "democratic process" was derailed by Yahya Khan, when he imposed martial law in March 1969. As for Bhutto's acceptance or non-acceptance of the results of the 1970 elections, the matter has to be seen in the context of relevant factors which need a detailed analysis. In any case, it has nothing to do with his going to the gallows. An entirely different set of circumstances were responsible for that tragic event. As for Bhutto being a civilian martial law administrator, there was no other alternative. Yahya had abrogated Ayub's constitution. Bhutto had no legitimate authority to introduce a new or resurrect an old constitution for the leftover Pakistan after the secession of East Wing. Only a body elected for the purpose could form a constitution for the country. In 1970 Pakistan had elected a National Assembly for the purpose. After dismemberment those of its members who were available in West Pakistan had the mandate to do so. So within four months Bhutto got the Interim Constitution approved by them and lifted the martial law on April 21, 1972. AFTAB AHMED Karachi Legislators' demand I was amused when I read about the lawmakers that taxpayers so charitably maintain in our National Assembly asking for a raise (Dawn, OCt 21). Regardless of whether they are a "backless ruling party" or a "noisy opposition", our worthy lawmakers must realize that in absolute terms they do nothing to deserve even the compensation that they are receiving right now. My suggestion: Start doing your job and legislate. The laws of our land need to be brought into tune with the modern times. Increases are given on the basis of performance, not verbal flatulence. TAQI JAFFRI Stanford, California, USA Tribute to Zafar Masud This is with reference to Air Chief Marshal Jamal A. Khan's recent article on the death of Air Commodore Zafar Masud who retired primarily because of his assessment of the situation in East Pakistan. Had his views been accepted, the landscape of the country would perhaps have remained intact. As mentioned in the article, this assessment of Zafar Masud was in sharp contrast to that of Gen Tikka Khan and his advisers who were able to convince Yahya Khan that East Pakistan could be subdued with brute military force. What followed thereafter would remain one of the worst chapters of Pakistan's history. Would it not be appropriate to recognize, albeit in hindsight, the "intellectual superiority and vision" of men like Zafar Masud so that the real heroes, clear thinkers and genuine strategists find their proper place in history? And, likewise, those with the intellectual and moral bankruptcy in the strategic vision must also be duly highlighted for posterity to draw lessons from. I recommend that NAB's jurisdiction should extend to cases of deliberate intellectual impropriety in the past, causing massive material, territorial and psychological loss to the country. If nothing else, it may provide lessons to learn from for future "paper strategists". SHAMS ZAHEER ABBAS Lahore Mohatta Palace Trefers to the letter "Mohatta Palace" (Oct 22) by Sh. Khurshid Hasan. I agree that something needs to be done about the garbage-strewn plot in front of the Mohatta Palace. Certainly converting it into a park or garden would further enhance the beauty of the museum. However, is it justified to go around renaming everything, as if our history only began in 1947? Should the younger generation forget that there were people before partition who cared about Karachi, and who made roads, parks, gardens, hospitals and beautiful buildings. Should we denigrate their achievements? Ms Fatima Jinnah may have lived and died in the Mohatta Palace but that was it. The Mohatta Palace was someone else's vision and we are still appreciating it today. If we want to honour others, let's build new things - new roads, parks, gardens, hospitals - and name these after them. By all means, if the Karachi city government makes a park on that plot, let them name it Bagh-i-Fatima or Bagh-i-Fatima Jinnah. Personally, though, I feel this couple now needs to be given a rest. I am sure we can come up with other names and they don't even have to be of people. But please leave the Mohatta Palace alone. DURDANA SOOMRO Karachi British Council's services The British Council has been providing a variety of services in the field of education to Pakistani youths for more than three decades. Its services are recognized the world over and those who study in the Cambridge system are thought to be more well informed than those who complete their education under the Pakistani system. It is, however, sad to know that the quality of the services being provided by the British Council is no longer the same. I submitted my IELT application form on Aug 8 for a test which was to be taken on Oct 11, but till now I have not received any reply. I have complained four times at the phone number of the British Council's information centre and sent numerous mails to it but to no avail. ANITA NIZAR ALI Karachi HR violations in Iraq Graphic pictures of open daylight abuse of innocent Iraqi women, fully dressed in their traditional black coverings, are circulating among the US Internet groups as the worst face of President Bush's liberation of Iraq. The man who prays in a church dutifully and considers himself a born-again Christian should now own up to the crimes committed by his forces in an illegally-invaded and occupied Arab Muslim country and UN member and should offer a public apology to all the peace-loving nations of the world. He should allow international human rights groups and agencies to document facts and bring to justice all such criminals in a public trial as war crimes. Widespread horror and anger are increasing day by day and the president of the United States will be solely responsible for any countermeasures that may be taken to register protest against the rape of Iraq by a superpower. GHULAM MUHAMMED Mumbai, India
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