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ARAB TIMES, TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2011

13

SUBCONTINENT

US presents demands to Pak

US Senator Kerry meets army chief

ISLAMABAD,

May

16, (AP):

US Sen John

Kerry gave Pakistan’s

army chief a list of

“specific

demands”

relating to American

suspicions

about

Pakistan’s

harboring

of militants ahead of

meetings Monday that

could shape a partner-

ship

dangerously

strained by the raid

that killed Osama bin

Laden,

a

Pakistani

official said.

US

officials

have

increased

pressure

on

Pakistan since the May 2

American

raid

in

Abbottabad - a northwest

Pakistan

garrison

town

where

bin-Laden

was

killed by US Navy SEALs.

But they also seem to be

trying to balance their

anger, aware of the risk of

wholly severing ties with

the nuclear-armed country.

Pakistan’s cooperation is

considered vital to ending

the war in Afghanistan.

Kerry, the chairman of the

Senate

Foreign

Relations

Committee,

is

the

first

American emissary to visit

Pakistan since the raid. Known

to be a friend of Pakistan, what

he is told by Pakistani army

and civilian leaders could be

key to American policy going

forward.

Kerry arrived late Sunday

and went quickly to see army

chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez

Kayani, handing him the list

of US demands, according to

a Pakistani government offi-

cial. The official spoke on

condition of anonymity and

declined to give more details

because of the sensitivity of

the subject.

On Monday, Kerry met

with Pakistani Prime Minister

Yousuf Raza Gilani and was

slated to see President Asif

Ali Zardari.

The US has long pressed

Pakistan to take action against

several

powerful

Afghan

Taleban factions sheltering on

its soil. The leader of the

Afghan insurgency, Mullah

Omar, is widely believed to

be in the southwest Pakistani

province of Baluchistan, and

allegations he is being har-

bored by the country have

been strengthened since the

death of bin Laden.

Bin Laden is believed to

have lived in a large com-

pound in Abbottabad for

years,

not

far

from

Pakistan’s premier military

academy. Pakistani civilian

and military leaders deny

knowing where bin Laden

was and have called the US

raid a violation of their coun-

try’s sovereignty.

Kayani told Kerry his sol-

diers have “intense feelings”

about the raid, in apparent

reference

to

anger

and

humiliation

here

that

Washington did not tell the

army in advance about the

helicopter-borne raid, and

the fact it was unable to stop

the incursion.

Zardari’s

office,

mean-

while, said US Secretary of

State Hillary Rodham Clinton

called him Sunday to discuss

the raid’s fallout in Pakistan.

Clinton has spoken of the

need to keep strong ties with

Pakistan, and stressed there’s

no evidence yet its leaders

knew of bin Laden’s where-

abouts.

While in Afghanistan on

Sunday, Kerry made it clear

to reporters that patience was

running thin in Washington,

where many have long sus-

pected that Pakistan aids and

abets Afghan Taleban and

other militant groups. Many

in Congress are saying that

Washington should cut aid to

the country.

“The important thing is to

understand that major, signifi-

cant events have taken place

in last days that have a pro-

found impact on what we

have called the war on terror,

a profound impact on our

relationship

as

a

result,”

Kerry said.

He added that “we need to

find a way to march forward

if it is possible. If it is not pos-

sible, there are a set of down-

side consequences that can be

profound.” He did not elabo-

rate.

In a parliamentary resolu-

tion Saturday, Pakistani law-

makers did not mention the

fact that bin Laden was living

in the army town or the suspi-

cions of collusion, but instead

warned of the consequences if

any more American incur-

sions were take place in the

future.

US Senator John Kerry (left) shakes hands with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani (right) at the Prime Minister

House during a meeting in Islamabad on May 16. (AFP)

A Kashmiri woman looks through her drape as she queues to cast her vote during voting

for village panchayat (local civil body) elections, at a polling station on the outskirts of

Srinagar, India, May 16. (AP)

Aid, cooperation may suffer

US, Pak seen muddling

through after bin Laden

ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON, May 16,

(RTRS): US ties with Pakistan following

Osama bin Laden’s death are teetering on

the brink, threatening to choke off

Washington’s ability to supply the Afghan

war and to deprive Pakistan of desperately

needed aid.

But neither country is likely to sever a

relationship that, while maddening for both

sides, has helped give Pakistan global clout

and allowed the United States to strike at

militants it sees fueling violence in

Afghanistan.

“There’s still a great deal of policy churn

going on in Washington. I think the mood

is a little dark right now,” a US official said

on condition of anonymity.

“I think the ultimate decision is that it

will be in our national interest to maintain

some kind of workable relationship,” the

official said. “Because, after all, Pakistan is

a country in a very tough neighborhood.”

Two weeks after US Navy SEALs

descended on a house near Islamabad and

killed bin Laden, the Obama administra-

tion is seeking a new course for bilateral

ties with a dubious ally against militants.

In Pakistan, military and civilian leaders

are facing unprecedented criticism because

bin Laden, whose al Qaeda organization was

behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the United

States, apparently was living undetected for

years in the city of Abbottabad and because

many Pakistanis see the unilateral raid as a

violation of their sovereignty.

The White House insists it will continue

cooperation with Pakistan but officials

acknowledge privately that talks with

counterparts in Islamabad have been very

tense as both sides brace for possible reve-

lations from the computer data and other

material seized from bin Laden’s com-

pound.

On Saturday, Pakistan’s parliament con-

demned the US raid, warning Pakistan

might cut the main supply line for US

forces in Afghanistan through the Torkham

border crossing in western Pakistan.

The chairman of Pakistan’s joint chiefs

of staff committee also canceled a five-day

US visit expected this month.

Some US lawmakers want to curtail or

cut off generous US military and develop-

ment aid to Pakistan, which has amounted

to some $20 billion since 2001.

“Our problems with Pakistan are a symp-

tom of 30 years of failed policy,” said Vali

Nasr, who until last month was a senior State

Department advisor on Pakistan. “We aban-

doned them after the Afghan war; we turned

toward India; we punished them with the

Pressler Amendment,” which clamped down

on aid and commerce in the 1990s.

“You cannot fix that with one year of

engagement. Fixing this issue is a long-

term issue,” Nasr said.

Retired Pakistani general Talat Masood

said the awareness in Washington that

Pakistani support is pivotal to peace talks

in Afghanistan — where President Barack

Obama will initiate a withdrawal this sum-

mer despite record violence — is another

factor that may help salvage bilateral ties.

“The fact remains they cannot afford to

cut off the aid and will keep the relation-

ship going,” Masood said.

The startling events surround bin

Laden’s death come just months after the

arrest of Raymond Davis, the CIA contrac-

tor who spent six weeks in a Lahore jail for

shooting two Pakistanis, seriously strained

bilateral relations. Yet there are signs that

Pakistan will be willing to toe the line. On

Friday, a US official said Pakistan had

allowed authorities to interview three of

bin Laden’s widows.

No special treatment: Kumar

From palace to prison for

India’s high and mighty

NEW DELHI, May 16, (AFP): India’s

notorious Tihar Jail in New Delhi is cur-

rently home to a clutch of VIP inmates

suspected of corruption as police win rare

permission to go after the “big fish” in

recent cases.

The forbidding complex, home to mili-

tants and murderers, offers little in terms

of comfort for its new white-collar guests,

who are forced to share tiny cells with

basic toilets in sweltering heat.

Prison chief Neeraj

Kumar told AFP that

the powerful connec-

tions

of

his

new

charges, which include

the country’s former

telecom minister and

the head of the Indian

Olympic Association,

have won them no spe-

cial treatment.

“It’s just a specula-

tion in the media that

we have a VIP jail,”

Kumar said from his office at Tihar where

11,700 inmates, including 470 women and

500 foreigners, are squeezed into facilities

designed to hold half this figure.

“We have not provided any special priv-

ileges to them and nor have they asked for

any,” he said, before clarifying that they

have been segregated from hardened crim-

inals for their own safety.

The biggest name in custody is former

minister A. Raja, who is awaiting trial over

his role in what police and the national

auditor believe to be one of India’s biggest

swindles.

Raja recently complained in court about

the austere cuisine of Tihar, where special

food is served “only on days of national

importance,” according to the jail’s official

website.

Flat breads, boiled lentils, rice and veg-

etables is the daily staple and “the food is

taken in hot cases to the wards where all

inmates must queue up to eat,” Kumar said.

Raja is accused of selling telecom

licences in 2008 at cut-rate prices to

favoured firms, losing the state up to $39

billion and causing a scandal that has

severely damaged the government of

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Five top businessmen, including a bil-

lionaire property developer, are also

behind bars awaiting trial, and the chief

organiser

of

last

October’s

Commonwealth Games in New Delhi,

Suresh Kalmadi

, is in judicial custody.

The usual day for inmates begins at

6:00am when they present themselves for

a headcount and then queue up for two

pieces of bread, a plate of curry and tea for

breakfast.

“There is also no question of providing

coolers in their cells,” Kumar said when

asked if he would oblige the VIPs, blister-

ing in 42 degrees Celsius (107 degrees

Fahrenheit) summer Delhi heat.

This sort of a treatment for wealthy and

influential figures in a country with a

strong VIP culture and long-used to the

near-impunity of its top political leaders is

highly unusual.

India’s police are generally reluctant to

go after people with connections, say cam-

paigners, and under Indian law the prose-

cution of a senior bureaucrat or politician

can

only

happen

with

government

approval.

“It is a rarity that these luminaries are in

jail, but the government was forced to take

this action because of tremendous pressure

to combat corruption,” said Anupama Jha,

Indian head of the anti-graft watchdog,

Transparency International. Under normal

practice, a lower-ranking fall-guy would

have been identified to do the prison time

while the bosses would get away.

Kalmadi