Kashmir killings – who is responsible?

This week’s killing of five Indian soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir has led to heightened tensions between India and Pakistan and the very real possibility that proposed talks over the disputed territory will be derailed.

This is a severe blow to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s hope of better relations with his neighbour, even a settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir issue, which has been a source of conflict between the two countries for more than 60 years.

Sadly the incident demonstrates once again what international analysts have known for decades – that civilian governments in Pakistan never have full control over their armed forces.

The Indian troops were caught in an ambush while on patrol by around 20 heavily armed opponents dressed in Pakistani Army uniforms who had crossed the unofficial border, or Line of Control (LOC), into Indian-controlled territory. 

The Sharif Government immediately issued a statement that the group consisted of terrorists bent on wrecking the peace talks who had somehow obtained army uniforms.

This was initially accepted by Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony in an address to Parliament. However, the following day Antony reversed his position. “It is now clear that specialist troops of the Pakistani Army were involved in the attack,” he said.

In the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the Foreign Ministry was sticking to its ‘terrorist’ explanation, describing allegations of official involvement as “baseless and unfounded”. 

But behind the bluster there is recognition that the only plausible explanation is that rogue elements of the Pakistani defence forces were involved. The only question is at what level was the attack sanctioned?

The Pakistani military is known to contain elements which are unwilling to pursue campaigns against the Taliban and other Islamic militants operating in the country’s more remote regions. Many agree with their fundamentalist aims and believe the dispute with India can only be resolved with the incorporation of the entire province of Jammu and Kashmir into Pakistan.

Since the death of the five soldiers a Pakistani civilian has been seriously wounded close to the LOC, allegedly when Indian troops opened fire.

Once again the two old rivals are facing off over Jammu and Kashmir and the prospect of a resumption of stalled peace talks is rapidly receding. Chalk up another win for fundamentalist terrorism over the voices of reason.    

Ukraine key to Russia’s resurgence

Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking every possible opportunity to thumb his nose at the United States. First it was the unconditional support of Syria’s tyrant President Bashar al-Assad; then came the sheltering of former American intelligence operative and whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

But there is lot more to the changing relationship than these headline events. Under pressure at home from an increasingly strident opposition movement which believes he is returning Russia to a Soviet-style authoritarian state, Putin is using foreign policy – and in particular the mixture of fear and envy that Russians feel for the US – to shore up his position.

At the same time he is taking deliberate steps to revive, if not the old Soviet empire, certainly its sphere of influence. While there is no hope of drawing the old Warsaw Pact allies in Central Europe back into the fold, countries that were once directly ruled from Moscow are softer targets.

Little Georgia was roughed up and firmly put in its place during the five-day conflict in 2008 in which Moscow backed separatist movements in the Georgian province of South Ossetia.

Belarus is less of a problem with its president, Alexander Lukashenko, adopting Soviet-era tactics of manipulating elections and violently supressing dissent. As a result Lukashenko leans heavily towards Russia where there is much less concern over his repressive policies than in Western capitals.

Putin has also pursued a ruthless campaign to supress breakaway movements in the Caucasus and elsewhere in the vast Russian Federation. Now he is using a mixture of charm and coercion to pull Ukraine back into Moscow’s orbit. 

For a while it seemed that Ukraine was destined to embrace the West and Western democratic values. The so-called Orange Revolution which propelled the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency appeared to herald a new era in which country was heading towards membership of both NATO and the European Union. However, disillusionment soon set in when Yushchenko failed to produce the reforms or curb endemic corruption, and he was replaced in the 2010 presidential poll by the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych.

Since then Yanukovych has consolidated his position by using many Soviet-era tactics such as the curbing the freedom of the press and harassment of political opponents, including former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko who he jailed. A delighted Putin has welcomed what he calls a “big improvement” in relations with Ukraine under Yanukovych’s presidency.

Yanukovych claims to be as enthusiastic as his predecessor about EU membership, (although NATO is firmly on the backburner). In fact, he is being far more receptive to Putin’s call for Ukraine to “look east” and ‘come home” to the embrace of Mother Russia.

How this plays out over the next few months will be an indication of the success or otherwise of Russia’s new, aggressive foreign policy.

News flourishes as newspapers decline

Reading an extract from Colleen Ryan’s new book, Fairfax: The Rise and Fall, I couldn’t help thinking of the legend of Sultan Mehmet II battering down the walls of Constantinople while the Byzantine Senate was busily debating the sex of angels.

Gina Rinehart, John Singleton, Mark Carnegie, Trevor Kennedy…all buzzing round the Fairfax media empire, forming alliances, grappling for the levers of power – and all either unaware or ignoring the digital cancer that is eating away both profits and influence.

Almost a year ago I wrote in this blog about how British regional newspapers were confronting the challenge of the internet by gradually moving the emphasis from print and paper to their websites. Former dailies had become weeklies with their journalists breaking stories 24/7 online and the print edition serving more as a synopsis of the news for the dwindling band of readers who still wanted to consume it in this way.

Managed properly this is a good model for the future of journalism, both in Britain and around the world, but in Australia we are locked into the old thinking, with the major media empires still seeing the internet as a threat to be confronted rather than an opportunity to embrace.

As a result the “rivers of gold” – the classified advertising that has supported Fairfax, News Ltd and all the other major Australian newspaper companies for generations, are rapidly being diverted into specialist websites such as Seek and allhomes. This trend will inevitably continue with increasing percentages of the population becoming computer literate and the number of devices multiplying.

Slowly, relentlessly, the new technology is knocking down all the old arguments in favour of newspapers. As an example, it was once said they had the advantage over computers because they could be read in the toilet, but that was before the iPad, Android and all the rest.

The hopeful message that executives at Fairfax and the rest have to really learn is that while newspapers are an anachronism, news isn’t. More people than ever are interested in what is going on around them whether it is gossip about the latest adulterous celebrity, the new hybrid car off the assembly line or the performance of their favourite sporting team. But apart from these ‘light’ topics there is increasing demand for ‘hard’ news both domestically and around the world.

I would suggest that the proportion of Australians who are news consumers is greater now than at any time in the country’s history. The difference is that they find it at places other than the newsstands.

Australian media companies can still prosper in the digital world, but only if they sever their attachment to the printed word. “Hot off the presses” and “deadline midnight” now belong to the world of period fiction rather than the 24-hour news cycle, but for the moment at least titles such as the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and even the Canberra Times, still carry goodwill that can be translated into the digital age.

Talented, professional journalists working for online news services, rather than news papers is the way of the future. A commitment to quality and good, old-fashioned beat reporting in the new technological environment would eventually see the rivers of gold running back home.

It remains to be seen whether Rinehart, Singleton and the rest can pause from their intrigues long enough to understand that old-style journalism is under siege and like the Byzantines, will soon belong to history.     

Early test for Iran’s new president

A test of the resolve of Iranian President-elect Hassan Rouhani appears to be developing even before he takes office on 3 August.

While Rouhani has said one of the aims of his presidency would be to negotiate constructively with the West to ease tensions over the country’s nuclear program.

This has brought a positive response from some quarters in the United States with a series of prominent citizens and former lawmakers urging President Obama to re-engage with Iran after the change in leadership.

However, Iran Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says that the US is “not to be trusted” and that he was “not optimistic” about any negotiations with the – a coded message to Rouhani not to push too hard for better relations with the country that conservative elements in Iran still refer to as “The Great Satan”. 

While his opponents in the recent presidential poll were falling over themselves to show their allegiance to the Supreme Leader, Rouhani avoided the subject. He is said to favour an interpretation of the constitution whereby he represents the sovereignty of the people and the Supreme Leader represents the Sovereignty of God.

In a country where Islam is woven deeply into the fabric God’s representative has always had the final say, something the Ayatollah highlighted when he said he had “not in the past forbidden” outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to negotiate with the US and five other world powers over the issue of Iran’s “natural right” to enrich uranium for the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Israel firmly believes that the object of the enrichment program is to produce a nuclear bomb to use against the Jewish State. Western countries claim past United Nations inspections have only seen the innocent side of the enrichment program and that more suspect nuclear facilities are being hidden – something that Iran denies.

In an article planted as an obvious hint to the international community, the English language Tehran Chronicle quoted Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi as saying that he hoped that the election of Rouhani would herald a new era of cooperation with Western nations.

This is a significant change from the hated rhetoric of the past when both Israel and Iran threatened to rain down destruction on each other with Obama repeatedly saying the military option was “not off the table”. It is to be hoped that Rouhani’s ascent to the leadership will present an opportunity for more constructive attitudes on all sides.  

If it must be Manus Island…

An open letter to Andrew Leigh, Federal MP for Fraser

Dear Mr Leigh,

After a long, hard look at the Australian Government’s new policy on refugees attempting to come to Australia by boat, I have come to the reluctant conclusion it is the best that can be done at present.

Politics is the art of the possible and it is quite clear that with the resolute opposition to boat arrivals that exists in many areas of Australia, especially in some marginal seats in Western Sydney, no government is going to be elected on a softer policy than is now being put in place.

The Opposition’s alternative of towing the boats back to where they came from, is ill-thought out and fraught with danger. It leaves the burden of deciding which boats are seaworthy and which aren’t on the shoulders of naval and coast guard officers; it will lead to desperate attempts to scuttle the boats at sea, and that’s even before we take in the possibility of confrontation with the Indonesian Navy.

The comment by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott that new arrivals should be sent to Manus Island immediately without health checks for such highly infectious and lethal diseases as tuberculosis, beggars belief.    

That said, as it stands, your Government’s own policy is still well short on compassion.

 I ask you, if the boat people have to go the Manus:

·         How quickly can the facilities be upgraded to basic humanitarian standards?

·         Will people in the camps have to live under canvas, and if so will you do your best to ensure that this is for the minimum time possible.

·         Will there be proper medical and recreation facilities on site?

·         Will the Australian Government have oversight on how Manus is run?

·         Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said the project will be revenue-neutral.  How can this be? Does this mean that Australia’s foreign aid in other areas will be cut? If so, will you make a stand against this?

·         Will there be proper facilities for the United Nations refugee body to process the inmates of Manus and will the Australian Government assist with resettlement in Papua New Guinea or in a third country?

Finally I would suggest that while this policy is designed to stop the boats – and may well do so – there are certain to be people left in limbo who will not want to resettle in PNG, will be too afraid to return to their country of origin and will have difficulty finding a third country to take them. Will you ensure they will not be forgotten and left to rot in detention?

Mr Leigh, sitting in one of the safest Labor eats in the country, you will certainly be a member of the next Parliament whichever party wins. Please do you best to ensure that Australia’s future policy on refugees is as humane and free from politicking as possible.  

-          Graham Cooke

Unhappy echoes of an old murder

One of the most extraordinary decisions in British legal history has resulted from an application for compensation by a man jailed for eight years for a crime it is now agreed he did not commit.

Barry George was convicted in 2001 for the murder of television personality Jill Dando in April 1999. From the very beginning the evidence against him seemed flimsy and after repeated appeals by his lawyers he was granted a retrial in 2008 and was acquitted.

However, his attempt to gain compensation for his years behind bars ended this month when he was denied leave to appeal against a decision by the Supreme Court that he was, in effect, “not innocent enough”.

It is impossible not to believe that this amazing verdict is based on George’s background which, since the original trial, has become common knowledge. He has serious emotional and mental problems, diagnosed in childhood; he had a typical Walter Mitty complex, posing at various times as a policeman and an SAS officer; more seriously he had past convictions for sexual assault and attempted rape. Before the Dando trial he was diagnosed as suffering from Asperger syndrome and epilepsy and was judged to have an IQ of 75.

However, the main case against him rested on the evidence of a witness who had seen a man in Dando’s street four-and-a-half hours before the late morning murder “who might have been George” and a minute speck of firearm residue on George’s coat. At the retrial an expert witness testified that this could easily have resulted from someone wearing the coat at a fireworks display weeks, even months before.

Miss Dando was killed by a single shot to the head on the doorstep of her flat in Fulham, London, about a couple of kilometres away from where George lived. No-one heard a shot and it appears that the murder weapon had been pressed hard against her head when it was fired. This would have the effect of deadening the sound and lessening the chance of blood splattering onto the assassin.

In other words, the killing had the hallmarks of a cold-blooded professional hit man, not the mixed-up, low IQ Barry George.

Dando was a high-profile television journalist. She fronted the Crimewatch program, which appealed to the public for clues to unsolved crimes. There were possibly underworld figures who would like to have seen her investigations halted. Another theory was that she was targeted by a Yugoslav terrorist group in retaliation for the NATO bombing of the Belgrade television station three days before, during the Kosovo crisis, which resulted in the deaths of several local television personalities.

The police have steadfastly rejected these theories saying they have no evidence of an underworld connection and that insufficient time had elapsed since the Yugoslav bombing for a retaliatory strike to be organised.

To my mind the Yugoslav connection carries some credence, especially if a trained agent was already on the ground in London, which in those troubled times was quite likely.

In the meantime, Dando’s family have no closure and George has no justice.  

Only the jihadists will win in Syria

Reports from the Syrian battlefronts indicate that the Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban, have now joined their al-Qaida allies in the Syrian rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.

The Sunni fighters will be ranged against the Shi’ite forces of Assad which are receiving support from the Lebanese Hezbollah.

This development will probably be welcomed with glee by some in the West. Terrorist groups fighting each other, what could be better? Let’s hope they kill each other off.

Sober analysis suggests exactly the opposite. Now the West loses whoever wins this civil war – and it also loses if no-one wins and if the war drags on.

All the current combatants are getting access to sophisticated weaponry. On Assad’s side it comes from Russia desperate to keep its only Middle East ally in power, while the rebels are being supplied and bankrolled by Sunni Arab states that see this as a holy war against the hated Shi’ite oppressors.   

If the war ends the victors will keep their weapons and the vanquished will probably be able to withdraw with theirs. Then all well-armed and battle-hardened jihadists can get back to their core business of attacking the infidels.  

An indefinite conflict also bodes ill for the West. Tehreek-e-Taliban commanders in Pakistan say they have already set up camps in rebel-held Syrian territory where inexperienced volunteers receive their military training before being sent to the front. They also act as rest and recreation areas and field hospitals for treating the wounded.

Such a sophisticated operation means that increasing numbers of young people from all over the Muslim world will find their way to Syria. Already there are reports of Indonesians either fighting, or ready to fight there.  A good percentage of these volunteers will become permanently radicalised and the West will be in their sights.

Speaking to Reuters, a prominent Pakistani author and expert on the Taliban, Ahmed Rashid, said Tehreek-e-Taliban was now acting like a global jihadist with the same agenda as al-Qaida.

“This is a way, I suppose, to cement relationships with the Syrian militant groups and to enlarge their sphere of influence,” Rashid said.

And caught in the middle are millions of Syrian civilians, helpless as their country and their futures descend into dust.