AQ Khan: The Scientist Who Escaped Assassins, Built a Nuclear Bomb, and “Ate Grass”

Just two years after the December 1971 war between Pakistan and India, on May 18, 1974, India detonated a nuclear device, confirming it possessed the A-bomb.

Pakistan had already lost a significant part of its land in that war. East Pakistan, which had already been undergoing a civil war, had emerged as the independent state of Bangladesh with help from India. With the war lost, and the country now divided, the timing of the Indian nuclear test could not have been worse.

Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was under intense pressure to counter what was perceived as a threat to the very sovereignty of Pakistan. Just a few years back, in 1965, in an interview, Bhutto had said that if India built a nuclear bomb, “we will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own.”

Sensing what was being cooked next door, he had already directed work on Pakistan’s nuclear program to be initiated and research had already begun in 1972. But it was progressing very slowly, and the prime minister’s restlessness was growing with each passing day. Now, India’s test had come to confirm his worst fears.

Like serendipity, a letter from a hardly known young scientist working in Amsterdam, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, arrived, in which he offered his services to provide guidance for Pakistan’s nuclear program – Mossad officials would later regret having failed to assassinate him in time.

Dr. Khan, was immediately invited for a meeting by PM Bhutto. Upon his arrival in December 1974, he was surprised to learn that Pakistan’s nuclear program had already set about. What he did not like, however, was that the scientists were relying on the plutonium route. He sharply criticized this approach and explained the viability of the uranium enrichment route to Bhutto. Upon Bhutto’s request, he spelled out the action plan for highly enriched uranium to the scientists of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).

One year after the first meeting, when Khan came to his home country for his annual vacation, and happened to visit the site, he was dismayed with the pace of progress. The scientists already working in the PAEC were no lightweights and perhaps had little reason to be receptive towards the views of someone they saw – more or less – as a holidaymaker, coming from Amsterdam for vacation and telling them what to do. The distance bomb-learning program was not working.

But Khan’s frustration over the inefficiency of the program resulted in a reaction he did not expect: Bhutto invited Khan to leave his job, settle in Pakistan, and lead the program. Khan, who was well settled in his new home abroad, which he liked very much, and who also had a wife from the Netherlands, initially expressed hesitance.

Yet, this represented an opportunity to make his country a nuclear power. Just a year back, following the Indian nuclear tests, he was frantically trying to reach the prime minister, writing him letters, one after another. In his estimation, armed with an atomic bomb, India’s next target, after East Pakistan, would have been the Punjab and Kashmir.

Not only did Khan’s word reach Bhutto, but he was offered to lead an independent arm of the program and protect his country. With his wife reassuring him of her full support, which was his concern, he saw no reason to turn down the offer.

Dr. Khan’s expertise and Pakistan’s nuclear program

While Pakistan’s civilian nuclear program had already begun in the 1950s, and a nuclear power plant in Karachi had started functioning in 1972, Pakistan’s military nuclear program got a strong impetus only upon Khan’s arrival.

The program headed by the PAEC continued; however, Khan had differences with the scientists there as he was only inclined to take the uranium enrichment route, which was his area of expertise. In 1976, he was given the charge of a new setup, the Engineering Research Laboratories, which he developed from scratch. The company was later renamed by the succeeding president, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, as “Abdul Qadeer Khan Research Laboratories (KRL)” in recognition of his services.

Khan had studied metallurgy in Germany, materials engineering in the Netherlands, and obtained a doctorate from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. Just after his doctorate, he had joined the company Verenigde Machinefabrieken Stork-Werkspoor (VMF) in the Netherlands, which had a big portfolio of heavy machinery, including nuclear plants-related equipment.

Khan got posted by VMF as a consultant at Urenco, a uranium enrichment company, which used to provide enriched uranium to power plants in Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the United States. According to Khan, the company was facing problems with designing gas centrifuges, and being an expert in materials, he was one of the engineers posted to this top secret facility.

Thus, Khan brought with him his experience and expertise in designing gas centrifuge technologies for uranium enrichment, which represented perhaps the most critical part in developing weapons-grade nuclear technology. He started working at a rapid pace to build the facility, and to develop and acquire materials and technologies, as fast as possible, without being detected.

Khan was a scientist, a metallurgist, and a nuclear-program architect, but at the same time, he was at the center of a secret network, having to strike deals to procure whatever was required from wherever at minimum cost and in the shortest time. Sometimes, this might have meant defense cooperation with other countries. In any case, the work progressed swiftly, and by the 1980s, Pakistan had achieved the capability for nuclear explosion.

Interestingly, the PAEC and the KRL, both complemented each other, but in many ways emerged as competitors too. Both claimed to have reached the potential to make a bomb in the 1980s using their own routes.

When India mobilized its forces in 1987 and started some of the biggest war exercises since WWII, Pakistani General Zia-ul-Haq landed in India to “watch a test match.” At the airport, he briefly met Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and warned him with a chilling equanimity, “Mr Rajiv, you want to attack Pakistan, do it. But keep in mind that this world will forget Hulagu Khan and Genghis Khan and will remember only Zia-ul-Haq and Rajiv Gandhi, because this will not be a conventional war but a nuclear war…”

With that threat, the war was averted. And Israel’s plans to strike KRL plants with India’s help, had fallen flat too.

The nuclear tests and Khan’s legacy

It was not until 1998 that Pakistan came to the fore with the bomb. When India performed its tests on May 11 and 13, 1998, Pakistan decided to go ahead with its own merely 17 days later. Pakistan conducted its nuclear explosions in an unpopulated, granite mountain range in Balochistan Province, under the name “Chaghi-I” on May 28, 1998 and “Chaghi-II” on May 30, 1998.

Before this, some had doubted Pakistan’s nuclear capability altogether. But the speed of Pakistani reaction came as a surprise even to those who believed it was in possession of an atomic bomb. Independent sources, based on seismic activity, confirmed that Pakistan had indeed conducted nuclear tests.

oday, the country is estimated to have a stockpile of nearly 165 nuclear warheads compared to India’s 156. Moreover, the KRL, in competition with the PAEC, operates a booming missiles program, in addition to other defense equipment.

Meanwhile, Khan became the target of Western media and governments quite early. In 1983, he was sentenced in absentia for trying to steal enrichment secrets from the Netherlands. He denied the charges, citing that the information he used to build the centrifuges was available in various sources which did not need any classified access. His conviction was overturned in 1986.

In 2004, Khan was accused of smuggling nuclear secrets and operating a nuclear black market. Pakistan, which is not a signatory to the Treaty of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), and hence not bound by its terms, assured the international community of cooperation to avoid a backlash and possible sanctions.

To the nation’s surprise, the country’s hero appeared on national television and expressed regret over his actions, extending an unconditional apology. He confessed to having supplied gas centrifuge components to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Immediately, he was put under house arrest to prevent further proliferation.

His house arrest ended in 2009, when a court found the house arrest orders to be illegal; however, his freedom to move remained severely restricted and he was kept under watch until his death on October 10, 2021, a few weeks after he had recovered from COVID19.

As for the allegations, it is a story shrouded in mystery. Some of the alleged evidence implicating members of the nuclear black market network, was destroyed – not by Pakistan, but by the United States. Many of the suppliers that Khan was accused of collaborating with were from countries which were signatories to the NPT, making their actions even more questionable.

The deeper you delve into finding the so-called truth of this story, the deeper you’re sucked into a labyrinth of very paradoxical questions. Add to this, the fact that Khan retracted his earlier confessions and repeatedly suggested that he had made those statements under duress.

Nevertheless, one thing that does emerge clearly from his life’s work is that Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan probably had little respect for the lopsided international treaties that safeguard the world’s nuclear weapon and missile cartels. It is little wonder that he was termed “at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden” by the frustrated CIA director George Tenet.

In Pakistan, Dr. Khan continues to be a revered figure, especially among middle-aged and senior Pakistanis who have a memory of full-blown hostilities between India and Pakistan. In the words of one professor, who wished not to be named, “he ate grass, so that we [Pakistanis] don’t have to.”

Of gun ownership, psychological health, and being American

The next mass shooting in America is expected to happen in less than 13 hours. That is what 457 incidents by 29th of August, 2021 translates to. This is horrifying.

Yet, as dramatic as it may seem, a graver threat to America comes from the mass shootings that are to likely in the longer run. The momentum that these attacks are building, and have been building on, has largely been ignored, but represents a much grimmer menace.

The underlying causes of mass shootings have become so saturated within the society that they cannot be distinctly identified anymore. Because they’re elusive, institutions and policies that perpetuate such proclivities are even harder to pinpoint and galvanize support against.

When the focus should be on building a better society for future generations, we don’t seem being able to agree on even how to save lives today.

Gun-ownership levels set the US apart

The substance of even more immediate policy gets lost, more or less, along partisan lines. Republicans, who overwhelmingly support lax gun-ownership laws, tend to put the onus on mental health. Former President Trump had gone so far as to say, “Mental illness and hatred pull the trigger, not the gun.”

But consider this. The US is estimated to have the largest number of firearms per person in the world. Even more remarkable is how much the US figure at 120.5 per 100 exceeds even the 2^nd highest country in the list, Yemen at 52.8 per 100, which is a country in the midst of civil strife and war. 

Roughly, every 4 in a 100,000 people die in America from gun violence. That makes a US citizen a 100 times likelier to die from gun violence, than a British – the rate in UK being 0.04 per 100,000.

Yet, even as the frequency and intensity of the shootings have been on the rise over the last few decades, people’s attitudes towards gun-ownership, on average, are still changing only very slowly. According to a Pew survey, as recent as 2019 (latest), 80% of Republican voters said it was more important to protect gun owners’ rights than to rein in gun ownership.

It takes a lot of effort and at least some pretence to say that there would have been as many killings in America if Americans had fewer guns on average. Unrestrained gun-ownership is elephant in the room.

Lagging behind on psychological well-being

Still, gun-ownership is not the only explanation for mass shootings, even if most democrats would be inclined to believe so. Mental health, which the more left-leaning voices cautiously avoid blaming – on rather passionate grounds that it could stigmatize those facing psychological challenges – is nevertheless associated with violence, and America’s situation here is again concerning.

According to a survey of 11 high-income countries by the Commonwealth Fund, every fourth American is diagnosed with a psychological health condition. Moreover, almost half of the respondents reported they had experienced emotional distress due to neighborhood safety concerns, or not having enough money for housing and/or food – an alarming statistic, considering America is the most resourceful country in the world by overall GDP levels.

Even with this state of psychological health, and one of the highest rates of suicide among the industrialized countries, the US compares unfavorably to other high-income countries on the number of professionals working in mental health.

Thus, the problem is way bigger than the precious little legislation in some states on ‘background checks’ for assault weapons manages to capture.

Which one is it?

In a world of complex interactions, a witch-hunt for the absolute fundamental determinant of violence is as naive as it is useless. What is incontrovertible, nevertheless, is that gun ownership levels in the US are not normal for a normal country – and shrugging it off as a byproduct of a sacrosanct ‘gun-culture’ could turn out to be yet dearer in future. Mental health issues, too, are at an alarmingly high level without the required infrastructure for support.

Both of these are problematic. Both need immediate redressal to bring them more in line with a level befitting a country with such massive resources as those of the US.

Yet, it’s already quite late. Gun-ownership may be restricted, but the guns people already have – including assault weapons – cannot be taken away. Mental health may be invested in, but it will be a challenge to pull the society out of such pervasive challenges to psychological well-being at large.

What’s worse, gun ownership and mental health could be interacting in far more complex ways than any research has been able to discern so far. In short, measures taken even today will take a long time to have any effect.

Where do the shootings originate?

But even such measures would be essentially dealing with only the somewhat superficial mechanics of the problem. The underlying causes of mass shootings cannot be identified without reconsidering the contours of social justice in the American society today.

Why is it that the wellbeing in one of the richest countries in the world has not kept pace with economic growth, even as corporations have thrived? While the common person struggles to survive, politicians are in a state of disconnect, essentially being a hostage to groups that enthroned them. It is the special interests who determine who is to get what from the pie, sprinkling peanuts of micro-choices here and there to delude the masses into an illusion of liberty, and even the lure of ‘Americanism’.

There is nothing American about settling for a mass shooting everyday. There is no liberty in not being able to choose to live. If anything, there is an incentive for those who design the frame of our choices to conflate constructed, imaginary ideals with ‘identity’.

If the corporate world can make assault weapons a part of consumption culture, and go so far as to conflate arms-ownership with national pride, elevating guns to becoming a definitive symbol of the American ‘identity’, undoing this formidable milieu is going to take a strong will and a perspicacious strategy as well.

Given the deep-set polarization in American politics today, breaking the categories will take long. Reimagining justice seems, unfortunately, quite distant. 

A distressed, hate-filled mass shooter is planning his attack somewhere, meanwhile. He knows he is short on time.

(This article first appeared here, on Politics Today).

ISTANBUL CANAL IS A 45-KILOMETER LONG WATERWAY TO TRAVEL BACK IN TIME & LIBERATE THE STRAITS

Bosphorus may be a strait for the world – a choke point in global waters – but for the people of Istanbul, the beautiful waterway represents the city’s soul. No matter how taxed you are, once you get onto a ferry to get to the other half of city, on the facing continent, you are taken over by the fulfilling experience of nature at its best – and its purest.

Interestingly, the enchanting strait is no less magical when it comes to what it could be leveraged for in international politics. There is a reason why the ancient Byzantium, former Constantinople, and the modern day Istanbul,  remained such a coveted city for global powers throughout most known history.

Today, Bosphorus represents Russia’s gateway to Europe through the crucial warm water ports in the Black Sea, which can be used around the year. The right to passage gives Russia significant influence in the Mediterranean, thanks to its Black Sea fleet. Similarly, vessels coming to Russia – and other Black Sea states – have to navigate through the busy strait at the heart of Istanbul.

As nice as this may seem to Turkey, it has also put it into a difficult position amidst the power struggle between Russia and the US, among others. In case of hostilities, both heavyweights know that the assent of Turkey in the straits could be a game-changer.

It was because of such sensitive nature of the straits – and the threat to Turkey from the expanding fascist Italy then – that the world powers had reached the Montreux Convention in 1936, which governs the rules of the game in the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles straits.

At that time, the treaty had given control of these erstwhile internationally-governed waters to Turkey under certain terms. It limits the number, and kind, of warships that can pass through, and the duration for which they can remain in the Black Sea, while providing a free, toll-free, passageway to civilian ships at the same time, in times of peace.

Now, something is happening in Istanbul which could bring 1936 back.

The canal and the craziness

Istanbul Canal, a flagship project of the Turkish government, is planned to be an artificial, 45 kilometers long waterway, on the European side of Istanbul, which will run roughly parallel to the Bosphorus. The foundation stone for the first of the 6 planned bridges was laid on 26^th June, 2021. Erdogan has called it his ‘crazy but magnificent’ project.  

Istanbul Canal is expected to significantly reduce the congestion in Bosphorus, which is currently one of the busiest waterways in the world with the average waiting time of about 14 hours for normal vessels, but which sometimes can get much longer.

As the Bosphorus is an S-shaped strait with extremely sharp turns and has about 45,000 ships crossing it annually, the congestion in such difficult waters has resulted in some severe accidents in recent decades, with incidents of fire that lasted a month in 1979, a 20,000 tonnes of oil spillage in 1994, and near-misses, such as of the ship River Elbe which almost crashed into a waterfront mansion on the 1^st of April, 2021.

Even so, not everyone is convinced about the worth of the project. The canal is estimated to cost a whopping $15 billion. Moreover, the initial estimate has been criticised for underestimating the potential cost and overestimating the revenues, projected to reach around $8 billion a year.

In addition to being expensive, it has been criticised for its potentially adverse impact on environment. Dissidents argue that it could potentially displace thousands and level hundreds of hectares of forest.

Moreover, it could impact sea life as well. The Black Sea is 50cm higher than the Marmara sea, and the difference in salinity of the two seas, may result in a change in composition of the latter.

Experts point out that the flow of cellular organisms into Marmara will result in a higher demand of oxygen, and thus create a breeding ground for bacteria and other organisms which create a sulphurous gas which smells like rotten eggs – and could spread in Istanbul. There are fears that it could severely affect sea life in the Marmara Sea as well.

The upside, according to the government

Yet, for the government the benefits of the project outweigh the costs. For one, it argues that the Bosphorus would become cleaner with lesser waste water from ships, lesser traffic, and safer for the people of the city. Similarly, the damage to the forest area is planned to be compensated with green archaeological parks lining up the coast of the new canal.

Moreover, the government expects the canal to provide a sizeable stimulus to the economy of Istanbul, a city that houses about a fifth of the the total population and is responsible for about a 3^rd of country’s total value production – or the GDP.

Add to this the fact that the canal will provide a big impetus to construction –  the sector that accounts for 8% of the economy directly, and about 30% when all the linked industries are considered.

The banks of the canal will have earthquake-resistant, residential developments expected to house about 500,000 people. The prospect of the canal has already meteorically increased the value of those lands, which along with other canal-related investments, is seen as a source of foreign currency providing support to the frail Turkish Lira.

Alongside all this, the government claims the project will reimburse itself. Currently Turkey is able to collect no taxes from vessels crossing the Bosphorus, as per the Montreux Convention. With the canal, however, the authorities expect a new source of revenue. With a reduced waiting time for ships with the new waterway, an increased traffic is expected in Turkish waters too. According to – somewhat optimistic – government estimates, 54,900 ships could sail through the canal in 2026, and the figure will rise to 68,000 in 2039.

One canal to rule them all

Yet, something besides the economy or the environment may be the central motivation for the project. Analysts believe that the canal will lend more leverage to Turkey on the Bosphorus.

On the face of it, it seems paradoxical to expect Istanbul canal to increase the importance of the already-existing strait. But Turkey could negotiate the terms of the Montreux Convention as they apply to the new canal, and that can hardly happen without some form of renegotiation about the rules that govern the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles straits.

Thus, what in Erdogan’s own words is his ‘crazy but magnificent’, is indeed expensive. But if it works, and with astute moves on the political chessboard, it may give more weight to Turkey in the region.

Irked by recognition of Turkey’s right to block free passage through Bosphorus and the Dardanelles whenever Turkey suspected a threat, Stalin lamented that, “The result [of Montreux Convention] was that a small state [Turkey] supported by Great Britain held a great state by the throat and gave it no outlet.”

Turkey, being central to NATO, is not dependent on Britain anymore. At the same time, Putin seeks good relations with Turkey, given its ability to control the straits with direct as well as indirect measures – such as marking which ships are dangerous, and establishing the protocol on how they can pass.

Thus, a politically more powerful Turkey, than what Stalin had been complaining about, sits at the centre of Asia and Europe as well as between Russia and US-NATO. The new canal will tighten that hold.

(Earlier version of this article was published in the Daily Sabah and may be accessed here)

Life in the Holy Land amidst war: the view from an American SUV

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning. Michael, who lives in Washington, D.C., is going on a picnic with his family. He checks his phone to catch up on the news. There is something about 67 children killed in Gaza during the previous week. He scrolls over the news.

Having read mainstream U.S. media, he thinks, it’s the Palestinians who are destabilizing Israel. There is a “clash” that began with the Palestinian people needlessly insisting to pray at some mosque, as was shown in the headlines. They have been attacking the police officials with stones, and escalating the conflict so much so as to fire rockets into civilian areas.

They may be occupied, but resisting even an illegal occupation with violence is not justified. “Hurry up, folks, we’re getting late,” he exclaims, starting his SUV, as if to take refuge from the voice within, pushing him to make a moral choice.

***

Somewhere in Gaza, Daoud is feeling completely helpless. A building in his neighborhood in Khan Yunis, was struck an hour back. He is confused whether to take his family out and hide somewhere, or to stay inside the building. Going out with his newborn is dangerous. “How long can we stay outside?” he asks, Iman, his wife, rhetorically. “What if a shrapnel injures Sarah (his newborn) and where will we hide?” he wonders. “The bombs can drop any moment, anywhere.”

While they’re discussing, their building is shaken by a huge explosion. It’s a shockwave from another strike that was aimed at the foundation of the building next to theirs. They look at the collapsing building from their shattered windows in horror. That building had a child playing on the balcony.

Even with the risks, Daoud decides to stay in his home, thinking that dying together, in one go, will probably still the lesser of two evils. One of his two sons, whom he has handed over to his brother, gives him hope that his generation may survive. But the rubble of the fallen building in front is also haunting him. What if his nephew, entrusted to him by his brother in exchange, dies with them?

***

Benjamin lives in Tel Aviv, the capital of Israel. Although most of the rockets are intercepted, one reached his neighborhood, injuring one person critically. He remains anxious throughout the night. The sirens can go off anytime. But unlike the Palestinians, he has a shelter to hide.

To him, Palestinians are at the center of all episodes of hostilities. Jews deserve to live in peace in their God-sanctioned lands, he tells himself, and Israel should do whatever it takes to ensure this. The sirens are blaring again. “When will this violence end!” he yells.

***

Since his expulsion from his real home in Acre, when the Zionist militias targeted Palestinian residents in the aftermath of the 1948 war, Ibrahim has lived in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, where his family fled during the Nakba. The Jordanian authorities, which had control of the West Bank then, agreed to give his family the ownership of the house they settled in. But then, another war broke out in 1967, and Jordan lost control of the territory, which was also occupied by Israel.

Ibrahim is in an Israeli prison, after being held on charges of rioting. He cannot understand how an Israeli court could order the eviction of his family from their house, and is worried how his family will manage. “As an occupied territory, how can an Israeli court have jurisdiction,” he asks himself. “How can the Israeli state expel them on the basis of a ‘legal’ order?” he wonders.

***

Miriam was raised in Lod, a mixed city of Israeli Jews and “Arab Israelis”, i.e., the Palestinians in Israel. Though the two communities were socially distant, she has at least one childhood friend who is Palestinian. She is upset about the “riots”, “the conflict”, and “the disproportionate use of force by Israel.”

Miriam’s great-grandfather lost his life in the Holocaust. When Miriam was young, her grandmother used to tell her about the tragic experiences of those times. She looks at the state with suspicion now. To her, the Israeli state is led by right-wing hateful politics, and politicians vilify and persecute Palestinians to their benefit.

She is trying to find words to offer condolences to her Palestinian friend, who lost her brother to a mob of Israeli violence in the city the other day.

***

Michael’s back from the picnic. His children are jumping on his bed, as he urges them to sit down. He’s scrolling his Twitter feed. Every other post seems to be about massive destruction in Gaza. Biden, whom Michael voted for, has declared support for Israel’s right to self-defense, despite the fact that more than 248 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, most of them civilians, including 67 children.

He comes across a picture of a man running with his daughter, who is probably dead, in his hands. Michael’s eyes fall upon his own daughter who is still jumping on the bed carelessly. His eyes are now filled with tears. He wonders how could so many families and children be hit in error by the Israeli military, known for its pinpoint targeting capabilities.

He wants to retweet an opinion article by Bernie Sanders criticizing America’s backing of Israel, but stops short of it. It could affect his apolitical image on social media and his work.

Before putting down his phone, he tweets a quote by Dag Hammarskjöld instead: “Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own convictions.”

Michael’s conscience is somewhat lighter now. He mumbles to his wife that Hamas’s rockets killed 13 Israelis in a week before going to sleep.

—

(First published in Politics Today, here)

Is Pakistan about to yield to foreign pressures on the Israel question?

The mere fact that Israel has somehow managed to keep the question of its recognition on the agenda is extraordinary by itself. There is no other country in the world that could afford the luxury of abusing any semblance of international law at leisure with calls for “recognition” of its legitimacy.

Even though it likes to play the card of being the original victim of ethno-religious persecution, Israel takes an eerie pride in covert “operations” – checkered by assassinations around the world – clandestine lobbying through elements in foreign governments, and even the charm offensive which can range from narrative building and subtle mobilization of the comprador classes within a country to the vulgar uses of human flesh, including its own.

So, whether you are a human rights activist, a person of refined artistic disposition, or even a mercenary, the menu has everything on offer, with added blessings from the United States, and not more than an eye roll from the European Union.

You just have to view the Palestinians as “foreign” and inherently problematic people who dispossessed the “Israelis” who “had come first” to the “Promised Land” and who are now creating problems for the “original” owners of the land. Interestingly, even though many of the Palestinian Muslims and Christians may be traced back to what’s referred to as the “Children of Israel” in the Jewish scriptures, it is still deemed virtuous to erase their most basic rights.

Once you’re able to see the unmistakable credibility and consistency of this Israeli tale of the “Promised Land” – a view rejected even by many Jews – you will get plenty of food for thought to sedate your conscience.

Pressures Facing Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan

Pakistan is one of the countries on the radar of Israel, looking for more clout in the world. Historically, it has lent unflinching support to the Palestinian people – including having sent its pilots during the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars. At one point, in the mid-80s, Israel is even reported to have planned to strike the nuclear facilities in Pakistan. That kind of cold-blooded animosity has softened over time. But Israel still regards Pakistan as a significant force in the region.

Yet, since the warming up of ties with the monarchy in the UAE (and other states), the question of recognition has been gaining even more attention. What was once a sacrilege in Pakistan is becoming somewhat less questionable, at least among Pakistanis who see the West as their model. Some respected figures in the media have chosen to propagate the proposal of recognizing Israel vehemently.

But why does the question of Israel’s recognition keep popping up every few days in Pakistan? And what is the nature of pressures on the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, including from the U.S. as he suggested in a recent interview?

Of course, Israel has a penchant for working from behind closed doors and its foreign policy seems to be woven around the “fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee” ethos. Even though it likes to play the card of being the original victim of ethno-religious persecution, Israel takes an eerie pride in covert “operations” – checkered by assassinations around the world – clandestine lobbying through elements in foreign governments, and even the charm offensive which can range from narrative building and subtle mobilization of the comprador classes within a country to the vulgar uses of human flesh, including its own.

(continue reading here…)

Why the UN Climate Summit was not such a good idea

et’s pitch in to save the burning woods. Or why not gather to halt climate change? Let’s do something outright fancy. Activists. Rallies. Lights. Cameras. And then, a U.N. Climate Summit.

The concern, of course, is sacred. The response has to be emphatic. The world needs to act, or we risk the future of our children.

If everything else in our world were hale and hearty, it would have indeed been a sublime idea. Our planet is precious. But just as the trees, the air, and biodiversity, the less-fortunate of our human friends have their place here, somewhere – or let’s say they have to have one. The Rohingya do not have to be stateless. The Uighurs do not belong to detention camps.

About 15,000 children, under the age of 5, died yesterday. It wasn’t even reported; perhaps, it is because they die every day. It is hard to believe that in a world where the urbane gentlemen don’t miss flu shots, so many children lose their lives each day from diseases as trivial as malaria, diarrhea, and pneumonia – because the medicines that could have saved them remain out of reach of their parents. Worse, sometimes it is simply malnutrition and hunger, which ultimately results in their death. They are the “other” children. Not ours, but very similar.

(continue reading here, on the Op-Ed pages of Daily Sabah)

Strike while the iron is hot

As the Kashmiri people go through disappearances, torture, and deaths, in a suffocating lockdown, how our suave world– eager to rise for all kinds of fancy causes– has chosen to react is embarrassing. We hear a piercingly loud and excruciating silence.

The little reaction we have had seems to be rather felicitous towards Indian PM Narendra Modi. Whether it’s US President Donald Trump reneging on his oft-repeated offer for mediation on Kashmir only to cosy up with Modi at the G7 summit, and wallowing in their newly-found camaraderie at Houston; the (aspiring?) leader of the Arab (and possibly African) world, Mohammed bin Zayed, bestowing the hate-spewer with the highest honour of his nation for his supposed services to the blessed land; or Russian President Vladimir Putin, standing out as always to make a statement of his dandy-rogue brand by signing an arms deal at the peak of Kashmir crisis, the shameless display of the hypocrisy of our world could not have been any more obscene; only so, if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had not decided to award Mr Modi for his “Clean India Mission”.

Here is the largest foundation in the world ready to honour a Hindutva ideologue in the midst of lockdown, information blackout, abuse, and utter humiliation of the Kashmiri people, which he happens to be overseeing– and relishing in (ref: Houston). The timing of the award, coming from the hugely influential Gates Foundation, otherwise a champion of rights of the underprivileged, is chilling to the bone.

Never mind it has been over 50 days since the over 7 million people of the Jammu and the Kashmir valley remain in a lockdown with restrictions on movement and virtually no communication with the outside world. Over 2000 young men and children have been detained since the abrogation of Article 370 on 5 August, only to add to the tally of tens of thousands of disappearances before. Some who go never come back, and this is what is driving the anxiety of many Kashmiri mothers, whose children have been picked up.

These ‘detentions’, under the Public Safety Act– which, ironically, was recently used to arrest the lifelong pro-India leader Farooq Abdullah– are largely arbitrary. Humiliation, torture and custodial deaths are a norm, as documented by Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International calls it a “lawless law”, and has many hair-raising first-hand accounts in multiple sequel reports.

How young men are being tortured in the current crisis has been documented by the BBC, The Independent, Al-Jazeera, the TRT world, various research reports, and credible activists like Shehla Rashid. But the brutalities of the Indian occupation forces have a long history with several reports produced by independent organisations– including some based in India– which are available online in plenty. Out of 432 people who were interviewed for the report, “Torture: Indian State’s instrument of control in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir“, published in 2019, the legs of 56 were stretched at 180 degrees, 101 had their heads dunked in (chilli) water, and 231 were electrocuted, sometimes in their private parts.

But even in the open, young people have faced horrifying violence with the world’s reaction limited to the usual automated condemnations. In addition to the killing of 90 people, in reaction to the protests in 2016, the Indian forces injured 17,000 people, and blinded about 100 people with ‘pellet’ guns in their most vicious use under Mr Modi’s leadership.

The non-lethal, benign-sounding pellets are metallic birdshots which pierce through the eyes and tear apart the retina, as they did in the case of 20-month old Hiba Jan, and 14-year-old Insha. According to a report by the think tank, IndiaSpend, metal pellets, “killed 18, blinded 139, injured 2,942 and caused eye injuries to 1,459 between July 2016 and February 2019.” In other parts of the world, these pellet guns are used to kill animals.

Because of the information blackout, no one knows how many people have actually been blinded, or have lost their lives in the current crisis. But pellet-ridden dead bodies are otherwise the new normal in such anti-protest measures of Mr Modi’s India. We do know of the 16-year old Asrar who lost his life, with pellets all over his body, about a month ago. There will be many more cases, as the doctors have shared how they are operating on tens of cases every day. But the information blockade has already made it a war zone for journalists, and little, if any information, can pass.

Jammu and Kashmir is a human rights disaster. Worryingly, however, this may only be the start of a new era of Kashmiris’ struggle and resistance in the face of brutal oppression. The Kashmiri people have forcefully repudiated India’s decision stripping away Kashmir’s autonomy, and any pro-India voices have now completely been disenchanted as well. The instability emanating from such occupations elsewhere in the world, as in the case of Israel, tells how these initially localised conflicts can eventually take the whole world into their fold.

Leaders like Donald Trump can build a legacy if they could press India to immediately stop the human rights abuses in the region, initiate open dialogue with the Kashmiri leadership, and agree on a timeline to conduct a free and fair plebiscite in the Kashmir region. The camaraderie with Mr Modi could actually have waited; perhaps for a time when he came cleaner.

The United Nations General Assembly session is a chance for the world to strike while the iron’s hot. Will Trump succeed in using his leverage over Modi to rise as a world-class leader, or keep embarrassing himself with disingenuous offers of mediation– punctuated, of course, by praise for his negotiation skills– that only make him look all the more vacuous?

(First published in Pakistan Today)

Media, the sole deterrent in Kashmir

The swiftness with which the modern man can switch from a shared consciousness for the problems of the “global village” to a cold-blooded individual who puts himself “first”, is one of the most brazen displays of hypocrisy the world has seen.

Since the abrogation of Article 370 by India, millions of Kashmiris have been under lockdown with a complete communications blackout, in addition to thousands of others detained. Their voices are not being heard, even by each other. If someone manages to sneak some pictures out, they become a New York Times viral. When a doctor somehow tells the BBC how the situation there is evolving into a humanitarian crisis, he’s picked up by the occupation forces. When the locals die or are killed by the occupation forces, their deaths are not registered. Hospitals, according to The Wall Street Journal, have become “graveyards”.

These are first-hand accounts of torture. Videos of terribly scarred bodies were shared by the BBC. All had similar accounts of being beaten with sticks, rods, and cables, only to regain consciousness through electric shocks being administered for further torture. Shehla Rashid, a politician, tweeted about four men being tortured with a mic placed in front of them so the whole area could hear them scream. She offered to provide more details to the authorities for an inquiry but was arrested for “sedition”. Unfortunately, these are only the stories that have made their way to the outside world with the victims, witnesses, and journalists risking their lives.

Torture is not new for the Indian law enforcement agencies which are protected by the draconian Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Power Act. The hair-raising accounts of Kashmiris that were documented in the report “Torture: Indian State’s Instrument of Control in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir” leaves one at a loss to decide not what to include but what is better omitted: plucking the detainees’ hair and nails, cutting flesh, burning private parts, and making them drink water in the worst forms, provides an idea of the kinds of torture reported. A staggering 432 testimonies in the document can land the reader into secondary trauma. Out of the 24 female victims of torture, 12 reported rape.

As noted in “Rape in Kashmir” by Asia Watch, a division of HRW, the Indian occupation forces are documented to have used rape as a device for retribution and control historically. Victims’ accounts of mass rape in the villages of Kunan and Poshpora on the eve of 23^rd February 1991, by the Indian military is widely documented by the HRW, the BBC, and in a book, Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora, among other sources.

Even where the allegations have been found to be true by Indian inquiry commissions, as in the case of Gani’s rape — which occurred in May 1990, when she was on her way to her husband’s home after the wedding — the perpetrators from the military have not been prosecuted. In 2009, two women were raped in the Shopian district but the head of the one-man inquiry commission, Justice Muzaffar Jan, had to distance himself when he found the released report was doctored by the police, which was among the accused as well.

After the abrogation of Article 370, politicians have called on Indian Hindus to marry fair-skinned Kashmiri women, and popular songs propagate this fantasy. Women have protested for being objectified. A recent report by researchers who were in Kashmir from 9^th to 13^th August 2019, reported women complaining of “molestation” by security forces.

It is against this backdrop of abuses by the Indian military, and sometimes their political backing, that the blackout is occurring. The international political response to Kashmir has been restricted to statements expressing the shamelessly clichéd “deep concern”. For now, the media seems like the only deterrent keeping the Indian forces in check. We should support it in fighting a war which should have been the world’s.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 12^th, 2019.