Maoists criminals, nobody’s saviours

Those who take heart from democracy and the rule of law as a cardinal principle of civilised rule and the basis of statehood, no matter how imperfect their practice in our country, will honour a brave Jharkhand woman, Sunita, who would be widowed within days of enunciating a sentiment that would do high officials of a modern democracy proud. The wife of police inspector Francis Induwar, who was captured by CPI (Maoist) activists in the forests not far from the highway that links the two major industrial centres of Ranchi and Jamshedpur on September 30, courageously told the media that seeking the release of her husband in exchange for arrested Naxalite leaders ought not to be effected as a way to extricate him from Maoist captivity as he was an official of a legitimate government and believed in doing his duty honestly. An assertion so stirring, by one so intimately related to a captive held by elements who decry our Constitution and political structure, has not been heard before. Indeed, the Indian state is known to have capitulated more than once to demands of terrorists on prisoner swaps. Inspector Induwar was beheaded by his captors without warning earlier this week. He wasn’t the first policeman to die in the line of duty, but his Talibanesque killing can be said to be easily the most gruesome of all the cold-blooded murders committed by those claiming to be revolutionists. The credo of violence that comes naturally to the Maoists has not advanced the cause of the poor and the landless one inch in the past half-century that the Naxalites have been around. It is reasoned debate in the legislatures that has influenced policy. As for the Maoists, their violence without limit against innocent people — recently they shot an eight-year-old child through the head — has earned them rebuke even from the writer Mahasweta Devi, who is known to stand up against violence by the state. Like the Taliban they appear to follow in some ways, the Naxalites appear to be laying siege to ungoverned spaces, especially in forested territories, through the use of intimidation tactics against local residents, who are usually poor tribal people. The aura and the myth sometimes built up about Naxalism and the Naxalites — presenting them as preservers of land rights of the unprotected — appears more than a little overblown. A long time ago there was among the intellectual elite some romanticising of this. This has dissipated long since. News reports suggesting that a leading Naxal operative recently captured by the West Bengal police is the master of insurance policies worth around Rs 1 crore can only undermine any positive image the putative followers of Mao may have once had. Other than mindless violence directed against low-level state functionaries and innocent rural and forest people who like to keep their own counsel, it is not clear what goals the Naxalites espouse. They seem to have no visionary aim, and no theory to subserve even the platitudes that are mouthed. Their slogans may deceive, but their practices are indistinguishable from those of plain criminals who chose the path of terrorism. Like the Taliban, the Naxalites have become destroyers of any signs of development intended for the poor, such as roads, schools, medical facilities. Naxalites prosper only when every vestige of development is effaced. It is not just the state that needs to move with energy against them, but the political system as a whole.

Hasina to discuss transit issue with India during visit

Dhaka: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is likely to visit India later this month when the politically contentious issue of giving transit facility to India through Bangladesh territory will be discussed, a newspaper said on Thursday.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni's talks with the Indian leadership last month may have paved the ground for the visit of Sheikh Hasina, the New Age said. Dhaka agreed to allow New Delhi to use Bangladesh territory to carry goods to Tripura in northeast India during a meeting between Dipu Moni and her Indian counterpart S.M. Krishna in New Delhi September 8.

New Delhi has also long been pressing for a transit right through Bangladesh to carry goods to and from the northeast and has offered to invest in the development of necessary infrastructure. Indian authorities are yet to make any concrete financial offer regarding its investment in building the required infrastructure, unnamed sources in the Bangladesh foreign ministry told the newspaper.

The two countries are scheduled to sign a deal in May 2010 on India's access to the Ashuganj Port in Bangladesh that it wants to use to transport heavy equipment for a power plant in Tripura.

Former prime minister and opposition leader Khaleda Zia has already voiced her opposition to the move, resurrecting old fears that India could "exercise control" over Bangladesh's infrastructure facilities.

Foreign policy experts interviewed by the newspaper expressed diverse opinion on the issue that is being intensely debated politically. Many have suggested that Bangladesh should mobilise its own resources to invest in roads, railways and ports instead of allowing India to participate in their building.

Bangladesh will need an investment of $2.4 billion for building infrastructure to effectively join the Asian Highway network, including transit to India, which would link Bulgaria in Europe to Philippines in Southeast Asia, according to a study by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

"We should thoroughly examine the requirements and modes of investments for a better regional connectivity. It is a question of our national interests, pride and dignity to develop our own infrastructures and I think we should afford the costs," former foreign secretary Shamsher Mobin Chowdhury said.

Imtiaz Ahmed, professor of international relations at Dhaka University, added that New Delhi realised that cooperation with Bangladesh was essential to develop the country, particularly its northeast region. "So, we should try to cash in on India's compulsion. We should think about long-term funding to establish regional connectivity, not merely India connectivity," he said.

Mostafa Faruk Mohammad, a former diplomat who is now a lawmaker and a member of the parliamentary standing committee on the foreign ministry, however, did not see any problem in receiving Indian funds.

"What is wrong if we take Indian investment as we are having investments from countries such as China and Japan in transport infrastructures?" he asked.

M. Rahmatullah, a former transport expert with the UN, pointed out that no concrete assurance of funding was in sight either from international financing institutions or private investors for developing road, rail and other connectivity.

"We need not invest money right now in establishing connectivity with India," he said.

A boy swims

A boy swims with his laundry through a flooded street at San Roque village, in Laguna province, 40 kms south of Manila, Philippines, on Thursday. A new typhoon gathered strength Thursday off the Philippines while nearly 700,000 people still sought help in badly stretched relief centers from massive flooding caused by Ketsana, one of the region's most destructive storms in years. — AP

Another quake strikes Indonesia, thousands feared dead

JAKARTA: Thousands of people were likely killed in a huge earthquake that struck Indonesia's Sumatra island, the Health Ministry's crisis centre head said on Thursday.

Rescue workers raced against time to assist victims of a huge earthquake on Indonesia's Sumatra island where upwards of 1,000 people are feared dead and many more trapped in rubble.

Another powerful quake struck Thursday south of the devastated area, but Indonesian authorities said there were no immediate reports of casualties from that quake, which they measured at 7.0 magnitude.

Wednesday afternoon's 7.6-magnitude earthquake caused buildings to crumble and fires to rage in Padang city, home to nearly a million people on the coast of Sumatra island, which was left largely without power and communications.

"The rescue personnel in the location estimated that so far at least 200 people have died," Disaster Management Agency spokesman Priyadi Kardono said in Jakarta.

But that number was likely to soar, officials said, as the first outside rescue teams from the Indonesian army and health ministry reached the city and surrounding towns to reinforce overwhelmed police on the ground.

Their task was to hunt for those still alive, in the twisted wreckage of collapsed hospitals, schools and homes.
"We need heavy machinery to lift the rubble... we expect that to arrive at the location soon," Kardono said.

At Padang's airport, parts of the roof had collapsed, leaving metal beams hanging down, an AFP correspondent said.

Health ministry crisis centre head Rustam Pakaya said a major city hospital was among the many buildings that had buckled.

"Houses and buildings have collapsed, causing thousands of people to be trapped inside in the rubble," Pakaya said.
He said he expected the death toll to soar over 1,000, given the scale of destruction and the large numbers of people feared buried in the rubble.

Yanto, a hotel receptionist in Padang, said electricity remained cut off on Thursday morning more than 15 hours after the quake.

"Our hotel has been heavily damaged. There are many cracks and rubble from fallen concrete," he said. "Thank God all our guests survived."

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, briefing reporters in Tokyo as he returned from the G20 summit in the United States, urged officials to "flood" the city with aid and medical relief.

Three military transport planes were preparing to deliver aid including tents, blankets and medicine, Disaster Management Agency spokesman Priyadi Kardono said.

"The effects of the earthquake could be as big as the Yogyakarta quake," he said, referring to a 2006 quake that killed 6,000.

British-based charity Oxfam said it had already earmarked 200,000 pounds (320,000 dollars) for relief efforts, including the distribution of emergency shelters, hygiene kits and clothing.

"We had aid ready because this area of Indonesia is susceptible to this type of tragedy," said Jane Cocking, the organisation's humanitarian director.

Panicked residents rushed from their homes and went fleeing through the streets after the quake struck off Sumatra's west coast at 5:16 pm (1016 GMT), 47 kilometres (29 miles) northwest of Padang.

It was felt in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, 940 kilometres (585 miles) away, and sent frightened office workers streaming out of buildings in nearby Singapore and the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

Dozens of aftershocks followed, including the major one Thursday which the US Geological Survey measured at 6.8 and said hit on land 225 kilometres (140 miles) southeast of Padang.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a "very small possibility" of a destructive local tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

The Indonesian earthquakes followed a massive quake measuring 8.0 in magnitude that spawned a deadly tsunami in the Samoan islands of the South Pacific.

Like Indonesia, the islands sit on the volatile "Ring of Fire," a massive zone of volcanic instability that encircles the Pacific. Geologists said Padang, which lies near the colliding Indo-Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates, was vulnerable to more quakes and tsunamis.

"There are three big volcanoes in West Sumatra -- Merapi, Talang and Tandikat. We fear that this quake might cause volcanic eruptions there," said Geological Disaster Mitigation and Volcanology Centre head Surono.

Padang lies on the same tectonic faultline that cracked off Aceh, at the northern tip of Sumatra, in 2004 to trigger the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 220,000 people.

In American politics, there is no ‘we’ today

I hate to write about this, but I have actually been to this play before and it is really disturbing.
I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Mr Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995. We had a beer in his office. He needed one. I remember the ugly mood in Israel then — a mood in which extreme Right-wing settlers and politicians were doing all they could to delegitimise Rabin, who was committed to trading land for peace as part of the Oslo accords. They questioned his authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies. His political opponents winked at it all.
And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment that was interpreted by one Right-wing Jewish settler as a licence to kill Rabin — he must have heard, “God will be on your side” — and so he did.
Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Barack Obama from the Right or Left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far Right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.
What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes, if he cuts my healthcare”. The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.
Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a licence to try to hurt the US President, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.
Our leaders, even the President, can no longer utter the word “we” with a straight face. There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” have these huge problems — the deficit, the recession, healthcare, climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that “we” can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective “we” at work.
Sometimes I wonder whether George H.W. Bush, President “41”, will be remembered as our last “legitimate” President. The Right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from day one with the bogus Whitewater “scandal”. George W. Bush was elected under a cloud because of the Florida voting mess, and his critics on the Left never let him forget it.
And Mr Obama is now having his legitimacy attacked by a concerted campaign from the Right fringe. They are using everything from smears that he is a closet “socialist” to calling him a “liar” in the middle of a joint session of Congress to fabricating doubts about his birth in America and whether he is even a citizen. And these attacks are not just coming from the fringe. Now they come from Lou Dobbs on CNN and from members of the House of Representatives.
Again, hack away at the man’s policies and even his character all you want. I know politics is a tough business. But if we destroy the legitimacy of another President to lead or to pull the country together for what most Americans want most right now — nation-building at home — we are in serious trouble. We can’t go 24 years without a legitimate President — not without being swamped by the problems that we will end up postponing because we can’t address them rationally.
The American political system was, as the saying goes, “designed by geniuses so it could be run by idiots”. But a cocktail of political and technological trends have converged in the last decade that are making it possible for the idiots of all political stripes to overwhelm and paralyse the genius of our system.
Those factors are: the wild excess of money in politics; the gerrymandering of political districts, making them permanently Republican or Democratic and erasing the political middle; a 24/7 cable news cycle that makes all politics a daily battle of tactics that overwhelm strategic thinking; and a blogosphere that at its best enriches our debates, adding new checks on the establishment, and at its worst coarsens our debates to a whole new level, giving a new power to anonymous slanderers to send lies around the world. Finally, on top of it all, we now have a permanent presidential campaign that encourages all partisanship, all the time among our leading politicians.
I would argue that together these changes add up to a difference of degree that is a difference in kind — a different kind of American political scene that makes me wonder whether we can seriously discuss serious issues any longer and make decisions on the basis of the national interest.
We can’t change this overnight, but what we can change, and must change, is people crossing the line between criticising the President and tacitly encouraging the unthinkable and the unforgivable.