Asia News Digest
Al-Qaeda Said To Be Recruiting in Pakistan
According to Karachi police chief Tariq Jameel, al-Qaeda, which had earlier exclusively recruited Arabs, is now seeking recruits from Pakistan. Al-Qaeda has set up a large number of small-sized cells within Pakistan, most of which consist of not more than 10 individuals. Tariq Jameel also pointed out that most of the 600 al-Qaeda members who were rounded up since 9/11 were Pakistanis. He said the Pakistani recruits come from Pakistani and Kashmiri militant groups such as Al Badr, Harkatul Mujahideen, Jaish-i-Mohammad, and Lashkar-e-Jhangviall of which are rabid Sunni sectarian groups. Each jihadi, depending on his performance, is paid $170 to $340 a month.
According to an article in the Pakistani paper Dawn on Oct. 9, based on interviews with security officials and some al-Qaeda suspects inside Pakistan, the new strategy of the al-Qaeda leadership has made it difficult for Pakistani security agencies to monitor the profiles of these new recruits and new groups.
Myanmar Rights Activists: Sanctions Are Pointless
In a stunning declaration of the bankruptcy of the U.S.-British policy of imposing sanctions on Myanmar (formerly Burma), the National League for Democracy, the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, the darling of the human rights mafia, said that the sanctions were useless, and called for dialogue. Following new sanctions imposed on Myanmar on Oct. 11 by the European Union, the official spokesman of the National League for Democracy, U Lwin told Reuters Oct. 12, "I don't think this measure will make any difference, since [the senior military leaders] hardly travel to the European Union countries."
U Lwin added that economic sanctions, especially those imposed by the United States, had been equally ineffective in persuading the government, which insists it is moving towards democracy in its own way. It is also worth noting that Japan, a major aid donor for Myanmar, also strongly criticized the E.U. sanctions.
Pakistan Will Not Send Troops to Iraq
Pakistan will not send troops to Iraq, President Pervez Musharraf made clear to both President Bush and Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, according to the Washington Times reporting from Lahore Oct. 19. Rejecting a personal appeal from Allawi a few days earlier in New York, Musharraf said: "As far as Pakistan is concerned, our domestic environment is not conducive. It continues to be not conducive. We cannot be seen as an extension of the present forces there."
Earlier, Musharraf had pointed out that the situation in Iraq "is not suitable for sending troops, but if India decides to send troops in this situation, then Pakistan cannot lag behind and let him take the fruits."
Musharraf's rejection all but ends a U.S. effort to enlist an international Muslim force to protect UN officials, who are supposed to return to Iraq to run the election in January.
Koizumi Calls for Some U.S. Troops To Leave Japan
"I'm not taking an optimistic view of how fast we can tackle this grueling work," Japanese Defense Minister Yoshinori Ohno said Oct. 8 of Washington-Tokyo negotiations over the neo-con U.S. military "transformation." U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld plans to pull 70,000 troops out of Europe and Asia in a decade in the Pentagon scheme, but is demanding Japan act as a strategic hub for U.S. Air Force, Navy, and other new "mobile forces," to be run by an expanded Pacific headquarters on U.S. Guam. Washington wants to integrate some functions of U.S. bases in Japan with facilities of the Japanese military, then put command of it all in Guam, outside Japanese controland then use Japanese territory as a hub from which to "rapid deploy" U.S. forces all over the world. This violates the U.S.-Japan security alliance, and Tokyo has objected.
Even Bush's best poodle, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, is under pressure to break ranks. In a post-war first, Koizumi played hardball Oct. 7, saying he would ask for the removal of 2,000-3,000 U.S. troops from Japan altogether, as part of the "global review."
Okinawa hosts most of the 47,000 U.S. military on less than 1% of Japan's land mass, so local Okinawans have demanded reductions with increasing anger. Rapes and military accidents have fueled resentment; the crash of a U.S. helicopter onto a university campus in August drew 30,000 protesters, the largest anti-American rally in Japan in a decade.
Shi'a-Sunni Violence Escalates in Pakistan
On Oct. 11, a suicide bombing at the Shi'a Husainia Hall mosque, in Lahore, Pakistan, killed four people, including two security guards, the Khaleej Times reported from Dubai. The mosque bombing was the third this month against a religious target in the province of Punjab, in what has become an intensified warfare between the majority Sunni and the minority Shi'a sects in Pakistan. On Oct. 10, suspected Shi'a assassins gunned down two Sunni clerics in Karachi. About 10,000 mourners gathered to participate in the funeral on Oct. 10 at the Islamic seminary where the two slain Sunni clerics had taught. Funeral prayer for one of the clerics, Mufti Jamil, who had well-established links with the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, was held amid tight security, with police sharpshooters on rooftops and riot police outside gas stations and neighborhood banks.
Islamabad has also sealed off the Pakistan-Iran border to prevent the Shi'a assassins from escaping into Irana predominantly Shi'a nation bordering Pakistan to its east.
UN Confirms Myanmar Opium Production Is Falling
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported Oct. 11 that opium cultivation dramatically declined in Myanmar in 2004, even as the UN struggles to secure financial support for alternative economic development.
The total area used to cultivate opium poppies in Myanmar for the 2004 season was estimated at 44,200 hectares, down 29% on from 2003, according to the UN office's report, released in Bangkok and Rangoon. That figure represents a 73% reduction of opium cultivation levels since 1996, said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the UN office's resident representative in Burma.
The reduction program began in 1996, after the surrender of opium warlord Khun Sa and ceasefire accords were signed between the Burmese junta and ethnic rebel groups.
Despite the decline, Myanmar is reported to be the second-largest source of opium, after Afghanistan. Some 260,000 households remain dependent on poppy cultivation for their livelihood.
Chinese, Russian Presidents Finalize Border
Presidents Hu Jintao of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia finalized the delimitation of their 4,370 border Oct. 14, ending a 40-year process to resolve all boundary disputes between the two nations, Itar-Tass reported. This was the leading item on the agenda between the two nations' Presidents. The accords included one on the eastern stretch of Russian-Chinese border.
The two sides also signed a protocol on completion of talks on getting Russia into the World Trade Organization.
The two sides plan to sign a Joint Declaration and adopt "a document, new in form and content," a Russian-Chinese Action Plan for 2005-2008, according to Russian President Putin's aide Sergei Prikhodko.
U.S. Lawmakers Oppose Military Funds for Indonesia
Now that retired General Bambang Susilo Yudhoyono, who is respected in the West, has been elected President of Indonesia, the Bush Administration is anxious to restore full military-to-military relations with the country, and make up for the U.S. loss of contact with the military, due to Congressionally mandated restrictions, especially since the East Timor fracas. However, a coalition of 45 Congressmen, both Democrats and Republicans of the "Project Democracy" mode, led by Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and Christopher Smith (R-NJ), have written a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell, protesting any revival of U.S. military aid to Indonesia. They cite alleged "gross human rights violations" by the military, and "no justice served" in prosecutions against military figures accused of responsibility for the East Timor riots and killings.
The Indonesian government provides only one-third of the military budget, while the rest is earned through business operations run by the military, a legacy of the 1965-6 coup against Sukarno and the takeover by Western-friendly generals.
Philippines Armed Forces Leader Faces Court Martial
The Comptroller of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Gen. Carlos Garcia, will face a court martial for corruption, adding more chaos to the financial and social crisis in the nation.
Gen. Garcia's son was stopped earlier this year at the San Francisco airport for failing to declare $100,000 he was bringing into the U.S. Investigations then revealed that Garcia had purchased several million-dollar condos in New York, cars and other property, none of which could be explained.
There is pressure on Garcia to come clean on the corruption in the military, which he probably knows about in some detail. Thus far, he is keeping quiet, and has been admitted to the hospital with sleep apnea, preventing his appearance in court or Congress.
A report is circulating in the Manila press that the U.S. is also investigating two other generals and three cabinet ministers, including former Army Chief Angelo Reyes, for illegally harboring funds in U.S. banks. The U.S. embassy in Manila said it was "unaware" of any such investigation.
DynCorp Guards' Boorish Behavior Angers Afghans
The aggressive and ugly behavior of DynCorp Guards now in charge of protecting Afghan Interim President Hamid Karzai, has angered the Afghans immensely, BBC reported from Kabul Oct. 14. Last August, at least three of these guards died when a bomb was detonated outside DynCorp's offices in Kabul.
DynCorp, a subsidiary of Texas-based Computer Associates, has the contract, worth tens of millions of dollars, to train the Iraqi police force. A Pentagon favorite, DynCorp had earlier won the contracts to train the Bosnian police and was implicated in a sex-slavery scandal, with its employees accused of rape, and the buying and selling of minor girls as young as 12 years old. A number of employees were fired, but no one was prosecuted. The only court case to result involved the two whistleblowers, who were promptly sacked.
But the stink from Kabul has begun to waft into the higher chambers of the U.S. State Department. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told news media on Oct. 13 that the United States "is concerned about inappropriate activities by some guards from the firm DynCorp," and the State Department has passed on its concern to company officials.
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