The latest news is that the intelligence agencies are blocking the UK military’s aid to the flood victims owing to Prime Minister Cameron’s remarks on Pakistan’s role in the Afghan war. It is quite odd, given how the government had earlier taken aid from New Delhi, dealing a big blow to the integrity of the patriotic public and the Kashmiris.

via WADI-Blog.

Dasselbe Blatt beschäftigt sich allerdings selbst mit den ganz wichtigen Fragen:

The entourage of visiting Danish Minister for Development Cooperation Soeren Pind also included two journalists who were blacklisted by the Government of Pakistan and forced out of the country with the direction that they should not be granted visas in future.
Sources in the Federal Government informed TheNation that Ms Puk Damsgard Anderson and Ms Semi Jan, both Danish journalists, were blacklisted by the Ministry of Interior and after cancellation of their visas, they were previously deported in May and June last respectively. It was clearly mentioned in the letter that both the ladies were blacklisted permanently and all the departments including Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other concerned departments were duly intimated in this connection.
…
It is pertinent to mention here that Semi Jan is Danish national having Pakistan background and Ministry of Interior had serious allegations against both these ladies and after having solid evidence against both these ladies, they were blacklisted and deported from the country.

via “Berlingske Tidende“.

Damsgård arbeitet für “Jyllands Posten”, Simi Jan, die selbst auis einer pakistansichen Familie stammt für “Politiken” und den öffentlich rechtlichen Sender TV2.

The government and local clerics refused to shelter around 500 flood-affected families belonging to the Ahmadiya community in South Punjab’s relief camps. Not only that, the government also did not send relief goods to the flood-hit areas belonging to the Ahmadiya community, The Express Tribune has learnt during a visit to the devastated Punjab districts of Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan and Rajanpur.

Zum ganzen Artikel.

A private survey carried out by a European embassy based in Islamabad found that only four per cent of Pakistanis polled speak well of America; 96 per cent against. (…)

(…) Pakistan has long teetered between being a failed state and a failing state. The rich won’t pay taxes? Little electricity? Contaminated drinking water? Kashmir unsolved? Blame it on the Americans. This phenomenon exists elsewhere too. For example, one saw Hamid Karzai threatening to join the Taliban and lashing out against Americans because they (probably correctly) suggested he committed electoral fraud.

Der Verfasser kommt zu dem bemerkenswerten Schluss: “In truth, the US is no more selfish or altruistic than any other country. And it treats its Muslim citizens infinitely better than we treat non-Muslims in Pakistan.” Dem ist nichts hinzuzufügen.

Momentan ist die Lage in der North-West Frontier Province äußerst gespannt, weil sie in Kürze nicht mehr so heißen wird. Heute stimmte auch der pakistanische Senat dem Vorhaben zu, sie in “Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa”, also etwa “Khyber-Paschtunengebiet” umzubenennen. Dagegen hat in den letzten Tagen die Bevölkerung der westlich von Islamabad gelegenen Stadt Abbotabad heftig protestiert.

Der Hazara-Distrikt, dessen Verwaltungszentrum Abbotabad ist, gehört zwar zur North-West Frontier Province, doch die Bevölkerung spricht nicht Paschtu, sondern einen Dialekt des Punjabi. Die Unruhen haben mittlerweile neun Todesopfer gefordert.

Christians have long complained about the law because it offers no protection if a Muslim accuses them of violations such as tearing a page of the Quran, and many accusations are levelled to settle personal scores. Just making an accusation is usually considered sufficient evidence to register a case.

Bhatti declined to elaborate on the proposed amendments but a government official said authorities were exploring “procedural changes” that might provide for registering a case only after an investigation and on the orders of a judge.

At the beginning of the new millennium, it is thus astonishing to hear some Muslim scholars invoke supernatural explanations for the Pakistan earthquake. While it was refreshing to see some open debate about treating earthquakes as purely natural phenomena, the dominant discourse continued to be about some sort of Divine warning or retribution. A few have gone as far as to blame the victims of the earthquake. It is as if the magma, which has been driving plates naturally and indifferently for billions of years, has suddenly become sensitive to the intentions of human inhabitants.

On the other side of the intellectual spectrum, even the idea of a scientific explanation appears threatening. For example, Dr. Muzaffar Iqbal has this to say in the winter 2005 volume of the journal Islam and Science: “… if earthquakes can be explained away in terms of the movement of plate tectonics, and all that happens on earth in terms of randomly occurring processes, then life on this ravaged planet itself becomes terminus ad quem, without any hope of a future life”.

Instead of seeing the potential for saving lives, Dr. Iqbal would rather shoot the messenger. Science, in fact, is the process that removes randomness from human perception. We no longer attribute lightening to Divine wrath. Rather, we put rods on top of tall buildings and direct the flow of electrons into the ground.

Das ist ebenfalls ein Hinweis, dass nicht Gutes zu erwarten ist:

A blast flattened a house being used by militants in Karachi on Friday, with six people killed when explosives apparently detonated accidentally, police said.

In “Outlook” (Indien) tritt sie ebenfalls für die Naxaliten ein. Zwei Absätze aus diesem Artikel fehlen jedoch in den anderen beiden:

Who are the Maoists? They are members of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist)—CPI (Maoist)—one of the several descendants of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), which led the 1969 Naxalite uprising and was subsequently liquidated by the Indian government. The Maoists believe that the innate, structural inequality of Indian society can only be redressed by the violent overthrow of the Indian State. In its earlier avatars as the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in Jharkhand and Bihar, and the People’s War Group (PWG) in Andhra Pradesh, the Maoists had tremendous popular support. (When the ban on them was briefly lifted in 2004, one-and-a-half million people attended their rally in Warangal.) But eventually their intercession in Andhra Pradesh ended badly. They left a violent legacy that turned some of their staunchest supporters into harsh critics. After a paroxysm of killing and counter-killing by the Andhra police as well as the Maoists, the PWG was decimated. Those who managed to survive fled Andhra Pradesh into neighbouring Chhattisgarh. There, deep in the heart of the forest, they joined colleagues who had already been working there for decades.

Die “Widerstandsbewegung” gegen den bösen Kapitalismus nahm also ihren Ursprung, als Indien noch fest planwirtschaftlich orientiert war. Und weiter:

Not many ‘outsiders’ have any first-hand experience of the real nature of the Maoist movement in the forest. A recent interview with one of its top leaders, Comrade Ganapathy, in Open magazine didn’t do much to change the minds of those who view the Maoists as a party with an unforgiving, totalitarian vision, which countenances no dissent whatsoever. Comrade Ganapathy said nothing that would persuade people that, were the Maoists ever to come to power, they would be equipped to properly address the almost insane diversity of India’s caste-ridden society. His casual approval of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) of Sri Lanka was enough to send a shiver down even the most sympathetic of spines, not just because of the brutal ways in which the LTTE chose to wage its war, but also because of the cataclysmic tragedy that has befallen the Tamil people of Sri Lanka, who it claimed to represent, and for whom it surely must take some responsibility.

Die Robin-Hood-Masche mag bei Guardianistas in Camden und schadenfrohen Pakistanis verfangen. Vor indischem Publikum würde Roy sich damit lächerlich machen.

Mehrere Artikel zu diesem Thema gibt es im indischen linken Magazin “Frontline”.

Vor einigen Wochen ist das Buch Eminent Lives in Twentieth-Century Science and Religion. In diesem von Nicolaas Rupke herausgegebenen Band findet sich ein Artikel von mir, in dem ich Abdus Salams Auffassungen zum Verhältnis von Religion und Wissenschaft analysiere, sowie Reaktionen auf die Nobelpreisverleihung beschreibe.

Der Fernsehsender IBN berichtet:

A New Delhi-bound Bhubaneswar Rajdhani Express was released from Maoist clutches by security forces on Tuesday evening, after rebels held it and its 667 passengers hostage for over four hours in West Midnapore district. All passengers are safe, the Union Government said.
…
Chidambaram denied reports that there was any exchange of fire with the guerrillas.

In der pakistanischen Zeitung “Jang” schreibt Rahimullah Yusufzai nicht ohne Schadenfreude:

According to reports in the Indian media, more than 220 districts in 20 or so states are now affected by Maoist-linked violence. Indian intelligence agencies believe the movement has at its disposal 20,000 armed cadres and over 50,000 regular members. Apart from the rural poor, indigenous tribes such as the Girijans in Andhra Pradesh and Santhals in West Bengal have been flocking to the Naxalite movement. The movement has appeal for the dispossessed and the under-privileged. In the words of its present leader, Mupalla Laxman Rao, in hiding somewhere in eastern India and better known as Ganapathi, his party’s influence has grown stronger and it was now the only genuine alternative before the people of India.

Der (nicht ganz zusammenhängende) “rote Korridor” von Distrikten, die von den Aktivitäten der maoistischen Terroristen (Naxaliten) betroffen sind, von der östlichen Gangesebene (West Begalen und Bihar) in den Dekkan (Andhra Pradesh). Von offizieller indischer Seite heißt es:

The Naxalites, who have become the gravest internal security threat forcing the Centre to plan an all-out offensive against them, have
killed more than 2,600 people, including civilians, in the last three years.

The highest number of incidents of violence has taken place in four worst-affected states — Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa — where 2,212 people lost their lives from January 2006 to August this year.

“We have witnessed more than 5,800 incidents of Naxal violence across the country during the period forcing the government to announce a new strategy to deal with the menace which is growing at an alarming pace in many states,” a home ministry official said.

Jüngst wurden mehrfach Polizisten entführt und ermordet, in West Bengalen wird die dort regierende, kommmunistisch dominierte Linksfront ideell und physisch attackiert, bei den letzten Landtagswahlen in Maharashtra musste der Urnengang in zwei Wahlkreisen wegen der Sicherheitslage wiederholt werden. Ansonsten haben die Maoisten Großes vor:

Kishenji says that by the time Bengal goes to its next state assembly elections in 2011, the Maoists will have expanded their influence in Bengal, even as far as Calcutta.

“We will have an armed movement going in Calcutta by 2011, that’s for sure,” said Kishenji.

Control over Calcutta has been a key objective for Indian Maoists since the beginning of the movement in the 1960s – so perhaps Lalgarh is the half-way house to Calcutta.

Ob der Erfolg der Naxaliten, wie Rahimullah Yusufzai suggeriert, auf “ppeal for the dispossessed and the under-privileged” basiert, darf bezweifelt werden. So berichtet das Asian Centre for Human Rights über das Verhältnis der Naxaliten zur Stammesbevölkerung (Adivasis):

Since the launch of Salwa Judum, an anti-Naxalite campaign, in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh in June 2005, the Adivasis, who constitute 78.51% of the total population of Dantewada, have become victims of the conflict between the Naxalites and the State government of Chhattisgarh. Though majority of the cadres of the Naxalites are Adivasis, they are not the decision makers. “Commander” Kosa, the secretary for the Naxals in Chhattisgarh hails from Andhra Pradesh. The apology by the Maoists for the killings of innocent Adivasis on 28 February 2006 at Darbhaguda was also issued from Andhra Pradesh . Similarly, the Salwa Judum campaign has been taken over by the State as a full-pledged counter-insurgency programme. The Adivasis are the pawns of both the parties of the conflict. They are also the perpetrators as well as the victims of the undeclared civil war.
…
However, the Naxalites also came with the baggage associated with communist armed insurrections – execution of petty bourgeois amongst the most impoverished, extortion, and other harsh punishments. The Adivasis became victims of gross violations of human rights such as “violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; taking of hostages; outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment; and passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples”, at the hands of the Naxalites. Some of those who were injured in the landmine blast on 28 February 2006 at Darbhaguda village were allegedly stabbed and clubbed to death by the Naxalites.

The policy of the Naxalites of forcibly recruiting one cadre from each Adivasi family compelled many families to give the female members to the Naxals. Hence, traditional Adivasi social taboos were challenged and destroyed by the Naxalites and resentment against the Naxalites grew. But, any rebellion against the rebels was quelled with brutality. In 1992-93, a rebellion against the Naxalites was silenced after the Naxals killed 70 Adivasis.
…
Both the security forces and the Naxalites have been responsible for the recruitment and use of children in hostilities. ACHR interviewed 9 SPOs at Bangapal Relief Camp within the Bangapal Police Station who claimed that they were below 16 years.

Das hindert linke Robin-Hood Romantiker nicht daran, Petitionen gegen eine Offensive der Sicherheitskräfte zu unterzeichnen. Mit den Adivasis haben die Unterschriftsteller reichlich wenig zu tun, vielmehr lässt sich anhand der Liste trefflich in Erfahrung bringen, wie bengalische Brahmanen mit Nachnamen heißen, vorne dabei erwartungsgemäß Arundhati Roy.

Inwieweit die Naxaliten von der Regierung Obama Unterstützung zu erwarten haben, wird sich zeigen.