Daily Star/14 July,
CrossfireWhen innocents become victims At least 14 killed by Rab had no criminal recordsShariful IslamAt least 14 innocent people were killed in the custody of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and police either in "crossfire" or from torture by the law-enforcers since the beginning of an extra-judicial killing spree in June last year.
These killings were not linked to anticrime measures as the victims did not have criminal records. Such extra-judicial killings sparked widespread grievances and protests among people and human rights bodies.
In all 14 cases the victims' relatives and neighbours said they were killed intentionally for vested interest or someone might have used the law enforcement agencies to take revenge on them. In some cases, misleading information furnished to the law-enforcers had led to the killings, they said.
More...
Friday, July 15, 2005
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Kosovo: Threat of enduring nationalism
Threat of enduring nationalism Kosovo’s rival histories
Negotiations on the status of Kosovo will start later this year. If the rights of all who live in or want to return to Kosovo are to be guaranteed, there has to be cooperation between the communities, not supremacy alternating between Serbs and Albanians.
By Jean-Arnault Dérens
A FEW kilometres outside Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, are two sacred sites. A tower commemorates the battle of Kosovo Polje on 28 June 1389, where a Turkish invading force defeated a coalition of the Christian peoples of the Balkans led by the Serbian prince, Lazar Hrebeljanovic.
More...
Negotiations on the status of Kosovo will start later this year. If the rights of all who live in or want to return to Kosovo are to be guaranteed, there has to be cooperation between the communities, not supremacy alternating between Serbs and Albanians.
By Jean-Arnault Dérens
A FEW kilometres outside Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, are two sacred sites. A tower commemorates the battle of Kosovo Polje on 28 June 1389, where a Turkish invading force defeated a coalition of the Christian peoples of the Balkans led by the Serbian prince, Lazar Hrebeljanovic.
More...
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Relief for a price, G-8
Vol:22 Iss:14 URL: http://www.flonnet.com/fl2214/stories/20050715000905200.htm
WORLD AFFAIRSRelief for a price
JOHN CHERIAN
The G-8's debt relief proposal for 18 poor countries comes with strings attached - they have to adhere to market reforms and pro-globalisation policies.
CARL DE SOUZA/AFP Gordon Brown.
IN the second week of June, Finance Ministers of the Group of Eight (G-8) countries announced, with great fanfare, their plans to "write-off" the debts of the poorest countries, most of them situated in sub-Saharan Africa. Gordon Brown, United Kingdom's Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is credited with working out the debt relief initiative, said in London that the plan was "a major breakthrough" as it offers up to 100 per cent multilateral debt relief to the "vast bulk" of the debts owed by the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). "Debts that are simply unpayable in the real world are finally taken care of. It is the richest countries hearing the voices of the poor," Brown said.
More...
WORLD AFFAIRSRelief for a price
JOHN CHERIAN
The G-8's debt relief proposal for 18 poor countries comes with strings attached - they have to adhere to market reforms and pro-globalisation policies.
CARL DE SOUZA/AFP Gordon Brown.
IN the second week of June, Finance Ministers of the Group of Eight (G-8) countries announced, with great fanfare, their plans to "write-off" the debts of the poorest countries, most of them situated in sub-Saharan Africa. Gordon Brown, United Kingdom's Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is credited with working out the debt relief initiative, said in London that the plan was "a major breakthrough" as it offers up to 100 per cent multilateral debt relief to the "vast bulk" of the debts owed by the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC). "Debts that are simply unpayable in the real world are finally taken care of. It is the richest countries hearing the voices of the poor," Brown said.
More...
Monday, July 11, 2005
Ten years of Srebrenica massacre
Bosnians grieve, West regrets Srebrenica massacre
By Daria Sito-Sucic and Maja Zuvela1 hour, 23 minutes ago
Families buried the remains of Srebrenica victims on Monday on the 10th anniversary of the massacre and the West acknowledged its failure to prevent Europe's worst atrocity in 50 years.
Thousands of men formed long rows, passing the 610 green-draped coffins one by one above their heads to freshly dug graves where women in white headscarves waited by wooden markers, many weeping or silently praying.
Each narrow, cylindrical box was tagged with a number and a name. Each was light, containing only bones painstakingly identified by DNA analysis. Each family buried its own, shifting the sodden earth with shovels, buckets or by hand.
The dead had lain for years in hidden pits where they were flung by Bosnian Serb troops in July 1995 after the systematic slaughter of 8,000 unarmed Muslim men and boys taken from what was supposed to be a U.N.-protected "safe area."
"Srebrenica was the failure of NATO, of the West, of peacekeeping and of the United Nations. It was the tragedy that should never be allowed to happen again," said former U.S. Balkans envoy Richard Holbrooke.
Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic and his political master Radovan Karadzic are indicted for genocide for the atrocity. Both remain at large.
President Bush sent condolences to Bosnia on behalf of the American people, saying the Srebrenica atrocity remained a source of pain for all who believed in the dignity of human life.
"We also remain committed to ensuring that those responsible for these crimes face justice, most notably Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic," he said in a statement.
A message from U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan repeated that Srebrenica would haunt the world body forever. Some 400 lightly armed Dutch troops guarding Srebrenica's Muslims were swept aside by Bosnian Serb forces while the United Nations rejected appeals for air strikes by NATO to halt their advance.
"The victims had put their trust in international protection. But we, the international community, let them down," said a message from European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "This was a colossal, collective and shameful failure."
MORE AWAIT BURIAL
"The truth cannot be forgotten, it cannot be denied. The evil must be spoken about for the evil not to be forgotten," said Mustafa efendi Ceric, Bosnia's chief Islamic priest.
Srebrenica, once a bustling Muslim-majority town, today is a dismal shell in the Serb Republic half of Bosnia. From a pre-war population of 36,000 only 9,000 live there now, most of them Serbs. The only visitors are those who tend to the graves.
Yet the evidence of massacre has little influence on those Serbs who insist any killing was simply a hard fact of war or who deny the massacre even happened -- despite a Bosnian Serb report last year acknowledging the mass killings.
Although Bosnia declared Monday a day of national mourning, its Serb Republic said it was "not informed" and largely failed to observe it. In Serbia, only a few private channels offered live television coverage of the ceremony.
Serbian President Boris Tadic attended the memorial and laid a wreath, ignoring Serb nationalists who objected, saying he should honor Serb war dead instead.
A choir opened the ceremony with the mournful "Srebrenica Inferno" as families sought out the final resting places of their fathers, husbands and sons. All of the Muslims among an estimated 40,000 mourners turned to Mecca and knelt for prayers.
"Our pain continues, every year we come to bury someone else," said Hajrija Mujic, who was burying her father-in-law. Her husband's remains were identified too late for burial today.
The massacre, in the final months of a 43-month war that claimed 200,000 lives, aimed to ensure there were no Muslims to fight back or reclaim Serb-occupied land or homes in the future.
Monday's funerals raise the number of identified and buried victims to about 2,000. There are 7,000 body bags with remains still to be identified and 20 more mass graves await excavation.
(Additional reporting by Nedim Dervisbegovic in Sarajevo)
By Daria Sito-Sucic and Maja Zuvela1 hour, 23 minutes ago
Families buried the remains of Srebrenica victims on Monday on the 10th anniversary of the massacre and the West acknowledged its failure to prevent Europe's worst atrocity in 50 years.
Thousands of men formed long rows, passing the 610 green-draped coffins one by one above their heads to freshly dug graves where women in white headscarves waited by wooden markers, many weeping or silently praying.
Each narrow, cylindrical box was tagged with a number and a name. Each was light, containing only bones painstakingly identified by DNA analysis. Each family buried its own, shifting the sodden earth with shovels, buckets or by hand.
The dead had lain for years in hidden pits where they were flung by Bosnian Serb troops in July 1995 after the systematic slaughter of 8,000 unarmed Muslim men and boys taken from what was supposed to be a U.N.-protected "safe area."
"Srebrenica was the failure of NATO, of the West, of peacekeeping and of the United Nations. It was the tragedy that should never be allowed to happen again," said former U.S. Balkans envoy Richard Holbrooke.
Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic and his political master Radovan Karadzic are indicted for genocide for the atrocity. Both remain at large.
President Bush sent condolences to Bosnia on behalf of the American people, saying the Srebrenica atrocity remained a source of pain for all who believed in the dignity of human life.
"We also remain committed to ensuring that those responsible for these crimes face justice, most notably Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic," he said in a statement.
A message from U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan repeated that Srebrenica would haunt the world body forever. Some 400 lightly armed Dutch troops guarding Srebrenica's Muslims were swept aside by Bosnian Serb forces while the United Nations rejected appeals for air strikes by NATO to halt their advance.
"The victims had put their trust in international protection. But we, the international community, let them down," said a message from European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "This was a colossal, collective and shameful failure."
MORE AWAIT BURIAL
"The truth cannot be forgotten, it cannot be denied. The evil must be spoken about for the evil not to be forgotten," said Mustafa efendi Ceric, Bosnia's chief Islamic priest.
Srebrenica, once a bustling Muslim-majority town, today is a dismal shell in the Serb Republic half of Bosnia. From a pre-war population of 36,000 only 9,000 live there now, most of them Serbs. The only visitors are those who tend to the graves.
Yet the evidence of massacre has little influence on those Serbs who insist any killing was simply a hard fact of war or who deny the massacre even happened -- despite a Bosnian Serb report last year acknowledging the mass killings.
Although Bosnia declared Monday a day of national mourning, its Serb Republic said it was "not informed" and largely failed to observe it. In Serbia, only a few private channels offered live television coverage of the ceremony.
Serbian President Boris Tadic attended the memorial and laid a wreath, ignoring Serb nationalists who objected, saying he should honor Serb war dead instead.
A choir opened the ceremony with the mournful "Srebrenica Inferno" as families sought out the final resting places of their fathers, husbands and sons. All of the Muslims among an estimated 40,000 mourners turned to Mecca and knelt for prayers.
"Our pain continues, every year we come to bury someone else," said Hajrija Mujic, who was burying her father-in-law. Her husband's remains were identified too late for burial today.
The massacre, in the final months of a 43-month war that claimed 200,000 lives, aimed to ensure there were no Muslims to fight back or reclaim Serb-occupied land or homes in the future.
Monday's funerals raise the number of identified and buried victims to about 2,000. There are 7,000 body bags with remains still to be identified and 20 more mass graves await excavation.
(Additional reporting by Nedim Dervisbegovic in Sarajevo)
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Bangladesh: No judges in 219 courts.
If this is the situation, how one can expect Rule of Law ?
========================================
New Age/10 July, 2005
No judges in 219 courts, 87 on deputation SHAHIDUZZAMAN
Eighty-seven judges are performing non-judicial functions with different ministries and departments on deputation when 219 courts of the country have been running without judges for years. Thirty-one district judges, 13 additional district judges, 32 joint district judges and 11 assistant district judges have been deputed by ignoring the 12-point directive of the Supreme Court, and causing enormous sufferings to the litigants, the court sources said. Sources in the law, justice and parliamentary affairs ministry said crisis of judges reached such a stage as the government could not go for fresh recruitment following a SC bar. The SC on December 2, 1999 detailed the 12-point directive regarding the separation of the judiciary from the administration, barring the government to go for fresh recruitment before forming a Judicial Services Commission. It also imposed a restriction on the performance of non-judicial and administrative functions by the judges on deputation in any ministry or department of the government. It, however, allowed deputation to perform judicial functions. The court sources said judicial activities, which had been affecting because of the want of judges, reached to the peak for the deputation of the judges. A row between the SC and the ministry over the transfer and posting of judges is also affecting the judicial activities in many courts as the posts of more than a dozen of district judges and three joint district judges are lying vacant for the same reason, they added. The Supreme Court is sitting idle with some files of transfer and posting of judges on ground that it does not match the court’s 12-point directive and set rules of the court, claimed a source in the court. According to the constitution, the government has to transfer and offer posting of the judges in consultation with the Supreme Court. The ministry sources, however, said the ministry had referred some files of transfer and posting of the judges requesting the Supreme Court to review its previous recommendations. The law minister, Moudud Ahmed, told New Age on Saturday that all the deputations were made in consultation with the Supreme Court. He, however, said 21 of the judges were deputed to the law ministry to perform judicial-administrative functions. The ministry has to propose for deputation of the rest of the judges according to the demands made by different ministries and departments to deal with legal matters in their respective offices, he added. Meanwhile, the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission and five other ministries and departments have asked the law ministry to depute nine judges, said sources in the ministry.
========================================
New Age/10 July, 2005
No judges in 219 courts, 87 on deputation SHAHIDUZZAMAN
Eighty-seven judges are performing non-judicial functions with different ministries and departments on deputation when 219 courts of the country have been running without judges for years. Thirty-one district judges, 13 additional district judges, 32 joint district judges and 11 assistant district judges have been deputed by ignoring the 12-point directive of the Supreme Court, and causing enormous sufferings to the litigants, the court sources said. Sources in the law, justice and parliamentary affairs ministry said crisis of judges reached such a stage as the government could not go for fresh recruitment following a SC bar. The SC on December 2, 1999 detailed the 12-point directive regarding the separation of the judiciary from the administration, barring the government to go for fresh recruitment before forming a Judicial Services Commission. It also imposed a restriction on the performance of non-judicial and administrative functions by the judges on deputation in any ministry or department of the government. It, however, allowed deputation to perform judicial functions. The court sources said judicial activities, which had been affecting because of the want of judges, reached to the peak for the deputation of the judges. A row between the SC and the ministry over the transfer and posting of judges is also affecting the judicial activities in many courts as the posts of more than a dozen of district judges and three joint district judges are lying vacant for the same reason, they added. The Supreme Court is sitting idle with some files of transfer and posting of judges on ground that it does not match the court’s 12-point directive and set rules of the court, claimed a source in the court. According to the constitution, the government has to transfer and offer posting of the judges in consultation with the Supreme Court. The ministry sources, however, said the ministry had referred some files of transfer and posting of the judges requesting the Supreme Court to review its previous recommendations. The law minister, Moudud Ahmed, told New Age on Saturday that all the deputations were made in consultation with the Supreme Court. He, however, said 21 of the judges were deputed to the law ministry to perform judicial-administrative functions. The ministry has to propose for deputation of the rest of the judges according to the demands made by different ministries and departments to deal with legal matters in their respective offices, he added. Meanwhile, the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission and five other ministries and departments have asked the law ministry to depute nine judges, said sources in the ministry.
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Monday Musing: The Man With Qualities
Written by Abbas Reza
Monday Musing: The Man With Qualities
Sahabzada Yaqub Khan is the father of one of my closest friends, Samad Khan. He is also probably the most remarkable man I have ever met. All Pakistanis know who he is, as do many others, especially world leaders and diplomats, but to those of you for whom his name is new, I would like to take this Monday Musing as an opportunity to introduce him.
The first time that I met Sahabzada Yaqub Khan about six years ago, he was in Washington and New York as part of a tour of four or five countries (America, Russia, China, Japan, etc.) relations with which are especially important to Pakistan. He had come as President Musharraf's special envoy to reassure these governments in the wake of the fall of the kleptocratic shambles that was Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's so-called democratic government. Samad Khan, or Sammy K as he is affectionately known to friends, invited me over to his apartment to meet his Dad. I had heard and read much about Sahabzada Yaqub and knew his reputation for fierce intellect and even more intimidating, had heard reports of his impatience with and inability to suffer fools, so I was nervous when I walked in. Over the next couple of hours I was blown away: Sahabzada Yaqub was not much interested in talking about politics, and instead, asked about my doctoral studies in philosophy. It was soon apparent that he had read widely and deeply in the subject, and knew quite a bit about the Anglo-American analytic philosophy I had spent the previous five years reading. He even asked some pointed questions about aspects of philosophy which even some graduate students in the field might not know about, much less laymen. Though we were interrupted by a series of phone calls from the likes of Henry Kissinger wanting to pay their respects while Sahabzada Yaqub was in town, we managed to talk not just about philosophy, but also physics (he wanted to know more about string theory), Goethe (SYK explained some of his little-known scientific work, in addition to quoting and then explicating some difficult passages from Faust), the implications of Gödel's incompleteness theorem, and Urdu literature, of which Sahabzada Yaqub has been a lifelong devotee.
I left late that night dazzled by his brilliance, and elated by his warmth and generosity. Sahabzada Yaqub listens more than he speaks, but when he does speak, he is a raconteur extraordinaire. Since then, I have been fortunate enough to get to know him well, and have spent many a rapt hour in his company. On my last trip to Islamabad, he and his wife and Sammy K had me and my wife Margit over for dinner, where upon learning that Margit is from Italy, Sahabzada Yaqub spoke with her in Italian. Then, realizing that she is from the South Tyrol (the German-speaking part of Italy near the Austrian border), he spoke to her in German, giving us a fascinating mini-lecture on German translations of Shakespeare. I can picture him now, emphatically declaiming "Sein oder nicht sein. Das ist hier die frage." (The picture on the right with Sammy K and me is from that night.)
Sahabzada Yaqub Khan has done and been so many things, that it is hard to know where to begin describing his career in the short space that I have. An aristocrat from the royal family of Rampur, he has served as a soldier, statesman, diplomat, and chairman of the board of trustees of Pakistan's finest university, among other things, and has excelled in each of these roles. In 1970, he was a Lieutenant General in the Pakistan army, and governor of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) when he was ordered by the military dictator of Pakistan at the time, General Yahya Khan, to have troops forcibly put down the mutiny there, which had spilled out into the streets. It is a testament to Sahabzada Yaqub's moral courage that he refused, and resigned instead. Yahya, of course, found less-conscientious generals to do his dirty work, and the result was a massacre of Bengali civilians before a humiliating defeat in war when India stepped in on the side of the insurgents, and ultimately the dismemberment of Pakistan. This is a dark chapter in Pakistani history for which the government has yet to apologize to the Bangladeshi people. Sahabzada Yaqub Khan is, however, still celebrated as a hero in Bangladesh. (His moral convictions haven't changed, either. The last time Sahabzada Yaqub visited New York in July, 2004 he came over for drinks and pizza--he is a man of sophisticated tastes who still enjoys simple things--and more than anything else, that day he repeatedly expressed his shock and dismay at the behavior of U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib. What particularly galled and appalled him was that the troops took such delight and pride in their torturous abuse that they felt compelled to record it on film--as if they wanted to be able to relive it. The lack of shame was what disturbed him the most.)
Soon after the debacle of 1971, when a properly-elected civilian government had taken power in Pakistan, Sahabzada Yaqub was offered, and accepted, several diplomatic appointments, serving as Pakistan's ambassador to France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Let me illustrate his reputation as a cold-war strategist with a quick anecdote: one day Sammy K and I were searching through some old packed boxes of Sammy K's for a 70s punk rock record, when I came upon an official looking document, with the seal of the President of the United States on it. On examination, it turned out to be a letter from Nixon to Sahabzada Yaqub, written while Nixon was president, and (I am quoting from memory) this is roughly what Nixon had to say: "It was a pleasure meeting you and spending some time talking to you. Alexander Haig had told me that you are probably the most astute geopolitical thinker alive today. Having met you, I believe this was an understatement. Call me anytime." Or words to that effect.
From 1982 onwards, Sahabzada Yaqub Khan served as Pakistan's foreign minister in various governments. He was a central figure in the UN negotiations to end Soviet involvement in Afghanistan. From 1992 to 1994, Sahabzada Yaqub was also the United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative for the Western Sahara. And in November 1999, as I have already mentioned, Sahabzada Yaqub traveled to various countries as President Musharraf's special envoy. While Sahabzada Yaqub was in America as part of that tour, William Safire wrote an editorial in the New York Times in which, amongst much else, he said that for clarification about the situation in Pakistan he turned to "the most skillful diplomat in the world today: Sahabzada Yaqub Khan."
Though he has always been fiercely protective of his privacy, politely refusing to write his memoirs despite great public demand (including entreaties over the last few years from me), Sahabzada Yaqub Khan has recently allowed some of his writings to be collected into book form: Strategy, Diplomacy, Humanity, compiled and edited by Dr. Anwar Dil, had its launch earlier this month at a ceremony at the Agha Khan University in Karachi. Here is a description of the book from the AKU website:
...the book Strategy, Diplomacy, Humanity contains Sahabzada Yaqub-Khan’s selected writings, with photos spanning his entire life, culled from his lectures, articles and speeches between 1980s and the present day. They describe his thoughts on national strategy, diplomacy, world affairs, education and his vision of a world of dialogue and peace for all of humanity. In the foreword, Shaharyar M. Khan, former foreign secretary of Pakistan, describes the book as “essential reading for the student of modern history, diplomatic strategy, and the art and craft of negotiations. They reflect the outpourings of a brilliant analyst whose immense talent was applied towards achieving pragmatic objectives in Pakistan’s national interest.”
I have been unable to obtain the book, but even without having seen it yet, I can safely urge you to get a copy and read it if you can. I also hope that Sahabzada Yaqub overcomes his reticence soon and writes the detailed memoirs that history demands of him.
Among other things, Sahabzada Yaqub Khan is a true polyglot: he can speak, read and write somewhere between 6 and 10 languages. While he was governor of East Pakistan, he learned Bengali and delivered public addresses in it, which went a long way toward assuaging their concerns of cultural dominance by West Pakistan. He is also a stylishly impeccable dresser (he was voted best-dressed several years in a row by the Washington diplomatic corps). My greatest joy in his company, however, remains his inimitable explications of the deeper philosophical implications buried in Ghalib's couplets, of which he has been a longtime and enthusiastic student. In short, he is a man with many and diverse qualities.
Have a good week!
Monday Musing: The Man With Qualities
Sahabzada Yaqub Khan is the father of one of my closest friends, Samad Khan. He is also probably the most remarkable man I have ever met. All Pakistanis know who he is, as do many others, especially world leaders and diplomats, but to those of you for whom his name is new, I would like to take this Monday Musing as an opportunity to introduce him.
The first time that I met Sahabzada Yaqub Khan about six years ago, he was in Washington and New York as part of a tour of four or five countries (America, Russia, China, Japan, etc.) relations with which are especially important to Pakistan. He had come as President Musharraf's special envoy to reassure these governments in the wake of the fall of the kleptocratic shambles that was Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's so-called democratic government. Samad Khan, or Sammy K as he is affectionately known to friends, invited me over to his apartment to meet his Dad. I had heard and read much about Sahabzada Yaqub and knew his reputation for fierce intellect and even more intimidating, had heard reports of his impatience with and inability to suffer fools, so I was nervous when I walked in. Over the next couple of hours I was blown away: Sahabzada Yaqub was not much interested in talking about politics, and instead, asked about my doctoral studies in philosophy. It was soon apparent that he had read widely and deeply in the subject, and knew quite a bit about the Anglo-American analytic philosophy I had spent the previous five years reading. He even asked some pointed questions about aspects of philosophy which even some graduate students in the field might not know about, much less laymen. Though we were interrupted by a series of phone calls from the likes of Henry Kissinger wanting to pay their respects while Sahabzada Yaqub was in town, we managed to talk not just about philosophy, but also physics (he wanted to know more about string theory), Goethe (SYK explained some of his little-known scientific work, in addition to quoting and then explicating some difficult passages from Faust), the implications of Gödel's incompleteness theorem, and Urdu literature, of which Sahabzada Yaqub has been a lifelong devotee.
I left late that night dazzled by his brilliance, and elated by his warmth and generosity. Sahabzada Yaqub listens more than he speaks, but when he does speak, he is a raconteur extraordinaire. Since then, I have been fortunate enough to get to know him well, and have spent many a rapt hour in his company. On my last trip to Islamabad, he and his wife and Sammy K had me and my wife Margit over for dinner, where upon learning that Margit is from Italy, Sahabzada Yaqub spoke with her in Italian. Then, realizing that she is from the South Tyrol (the German-speaking part of Italy near the Austrian border), he spoke to her in German, giving us a fascinating mini-lecture on German translations of Shakespeare. I can picture him now, emphatically declaiming "Sein oder nicht sein. Das ist hier die frage." (The picture on the right with Sammy K and me is from that night.)
Sahabzada Yaqub Khan has done and been so many things, that it is hard to know where to begin describing his career in the short space that I have. An aristocrat from the royal family of Rampur, he has served as a soldier, statesman, diplomat, and chairman of the board of trustees of Pakistan's finest university, among other things, and has excelled in each of these roles. In 1970, he was a Lieutenant General in the Pakistan army, and governor of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) when he was ordered by the military dictator of Pakistan at the time, General Yahya Khan, to have troops forcibly put down the mutiny there, which had spilled out into the streets. It is a testament to Sahabzada Yaqub's moral courage that he refused, and resigned instead. Yahya, of course, found less-conscientious generals to do his dirty work, and the result was a massacre of Bengali civilians before a humiliating defeat in war when India stepped in on the side of the insurgents, and ultimately the dismemberment of Pakistan. This is a dark chapter in Pakistani history for which the government has yet to apologize to the Bangladeshi people. Sahabzada Yaqub Khan is, however, still celebrated as a hero in Bangladesh. (His moral convictions haven't changed, either. The last time Sahabzada Yaqub visited New York in July, 2004 he came over for drinks and pizza--he is a man of sophisticated tastes who still enjoys simple things--and more than anything else, that day he repeatedly expressed his shock and dismay at the behavior of U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib. What particularly galled and appalled him was that the troops took such delight and pride in their torturous abuse that they felt compelled to record it on film--as if they wanted to be able to relive it. The lack of shame was what disturbed him the most.)
Soon after the debacle of 1971, when a properly-elected civilian government had taken power in Pakistan, Sahabzada Yaqub was offered, and accepted, several diplomatic appointments, serving as Pakistan's ambassador to France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Let me illustrate his reputation as a cold-war strategist with a quick anecdote: one day Sammy K and I were searching through some old packed boxes of Sammy K's for a 70s punk rock record, when I came upon an official looking document, with the seal of the President of the United States on it. On examination, it turned out to be a letter from Nixon to Sahabzada Yaqub, written while Nixon was president, and (I am quoting from memory) this is roughly what Nixon had to say: "It was a pleasure meeting you and spending some time talking to you. Alexander Haig had told me that you are probably the most astute geopolitical thinker alive today. Having met you, I believe this was an understatement. Call me anytime." Or words to that effect.
From 1982 onwards, Sahabzada Yaqub Khan served as Pakistan's foreign minister in various governments. He was a central figure in the UN negotiations to end Soviet involvement in Afghanistan. From 1992 to 1994, Sahabzada Yaqub was also the United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative for the Western Sahara. And in November 1999, as I have already mentioned, Sahabzada Yaqub traveled to various countries as President Musharraf's special envoy. While Sahabzada Yaqub was in America as part of that tour, William Safire wrote an editorial in the New York Times in which, amongst much else, he said that for clarification about the situation in Pakistan he turned to "the most skillful diplomat in the world today: Sahabzada Yaqub Khan."
Though he has always been fiercely protective of his privacy, politely refusing to write his memoirs despite great public demand (including entreaties over the last few years from me), Sahabzada Yaqub Khan has recently allowed some of his writings to be collected into book form: Strategy, Diplomacy, Humanity, compiled and edited by Dr. Anwar Dil, had its launch earlier this month at a ceremony at the Agha Khan University in Karachi. Here is a description of the book from the AKU website:
...the book Strategy, Diplomacy, Humanity contains Sahabzada Yaqub-Khan’s selected writings, with photos spanning his entire life, culled from his lectures, articles and speeches between 1980s and the present day. They describe his thoughts on national strategy, diplomacy, world affairs, education and his vision of a world of dialogue and peace for all of humanity. In the foreword, Shaharyar M. Khan, former foreign secretary of Pakistan, describes the book as “essential reading for the student of modern history, diplomatic strategy, and the art and craft of negotiations. They reflect the outpourings of a brilliant analyst whose immense talent was applied towards achieving pragmatic objectives in Pakistan’s national interest.”
I have been unable to obtain the book, but even without having seen it yet, I can safely urge you to get a copy and read it if you can. I also hope that Sahabzada Yaqub overcomes his reticence soon and writes the detailed memoirs that history demands of him.
Among other things, Sahabzada Yaqub Khan is a true polyglot: he can speak, read and write somewhere between 6 and 10 languages. While he was governor of East Pakistan, he learned Bengali and delivered public addresses in it, which went a long way toward assuaging their concerns of cultural dominance by West Pakistan. He is also a stylishly impeccable dresser (he was voted best-dressed several years in a row by the Washington diplomatic corps). My greatest joy in his company, however, remains his inimitable explications of the deeper philosophical implications buried in Ghalib's couplets, of which he has been a longtime and enthusiastic student. In short, he is a man with many and diverse qualities.
Have a good week!
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