Nawaz Sharif

Benazir Bhutto

The “Charter of Democracy“ signed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif in London on Sunday arouses both hope and skepticism. Coming from two former prime ministers whose alternate periods of government were characterised by instability, political tussles and widespread corruption, the charter will be viewed by most people as a climactic point of the two parties’ anti-government, pro-democracy rhetoric of the last seven years. Full of pious intentions, the charter betrays traces of confession, for the principles to which it commits the two leaders were exactly the ones the two former prime ministers had violated in their times.
For instance, they have now pledged not to seek the army’s support for coming to power, but during the post-Zia period (1988-99), this is precisely what each did to oust the other. The mutual antagonism was so deep that, as Punjab chief minister, Sharif would make it a point not to stay in Lahore whenever Bhutto as prime minister visited the city, to avoid receiving her formally. This simply did not help the political process. Instead, what the nation witnessed was a confrontation between Punjab and the federal government.
Bhutto’s government fell within 20 months, thanks to the intrigues by the Sharif family and their allies in the opposition, the President House and the army. The ouster of her government was not followed by a free and fair election. The intrigues to which Sharif was party included the formation of a new alliance crafted by the intelligence agencies and fully supported by Army Chief Gen Mirza Beg, who later went public with the admission that he had distributed Rs140 million taken from the Mehran Bank to distribute to army loyalists.
Once in the opposition, Bhutto was equally determined to pay Sharif back in the same coin. She organised “long marches“ and later had the satisfaction of seeing Sharif go--first dismissed by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan (and later reinstated by the judiciary) and later resign following a tiff with the president. Evidently, neither of the two leaders learned from their first experience as prime minister, for the same sordid game continued to be played, with Sharif and others appealing to the president and the army “to do their duty“. Bhutto was finally dismissed a second time--this time by a president who happened to belong to her own party. Sharif’s second term was a disaster, even though he had “won“ with “a heavy mandate“. Besides financial shenanigans, he showed contempt for the judiciary by organising an attack on the Supreme Court building and was seeking to do something unheard of in Pakistan--he was trying to manipulate the army, when ironically it struck to oust his government.
For the military rulers, the charter poses no new problems, for the country is already in a political mess created by them. By sidelining the two leaders whose parties have roots in Punjab and Sindh, the generals have given the religious parties a free run of the field, thus perpetuating the mullah-military alliance. The present quasi-civilian rule has full blessings of the religious parties, which voted for the 17th Amendment Bill to enable the incorporation of the Legal Framework Order into the Constitution. The MMA has a vested interest in the continuation of the present order, for they are rulers in two of the four provinces. The only way out of the mess is that the next election should be truly fair and free. Any manipulation of the electoral process will merely prolong the present agony, making democracy a forlorn prospect.
DAWN.COM

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (l) addresses guests, alongside London Mayor Ken Livingstone during a visit to City Hall, London, May 15. (AFP File Photo)

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela will today become the second head of state--after the Queen--to be welcomed to London’s City Hall (President Chavez paid a visit to London on May 14-15). When it comes to the social transformation taking place in Venezuela, the political qualifications often necessary in our imperfect world can be set aside. It is crystal clear on which side right and justice lies. For many years people have demanded that social progress and democracy go hand in hand, and that is exactly what is now taking place in Venezuela.
It therefore deserves the unequivocal support of not only every supporter of social progress but every genuine believer in democracy in the world.
Venezuela is a state of huge oil wealth that was hitherto scarcely used to benefit the population. Now, for the first time in a country of over 25 million people, a functioning health service is being built. Seventeen million people have been given access to free healthcare for the first time in their lives. Illiteracy has been eliminated. Fifteen million people have been given access to food, medicines and other essential products at affordable prices. A quarter of a million eye operations have been financed to rescue people from blindness. These are extraordinary practical achievements.
Little wonder, then, that Chavez and his supporters have won 10 elections in eight years. These victories were achieved despite a private media largely controlled by opponents of the government. Yet Chavez’s visit has been met with absurd claims from rightwing activists that he is some kind of dictator.
The opponents of democracy are those who orchestrated a coup against Chavez, captured on film in the extraordinary documentary The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. It is a film that literally changes lives. By chance, a TV crew was in the presidential palace when the military coup of April 2002 against Chavez took place. It captured minute by minute the events that unfolded.
Anti-Chavez gunmen, in league with the coup organisers, opened fire on a pro-Chavez demonstration. As guns are commonplace in Venezuela, some in the crowd returned fire. US television stations manipulated these images by editing out the gunfire aimed at the pro- Ch?vez crowd to claim that anti-Chavez demonstrators had been attacked.
A million people took to the streets of Caracas to demand Chavez’s release. The moment when the army deserted the coup leaders and went over to support the demonstrators is shown on film.
It is a sign of how little David Cameron’s Conservative party has changed that London Tories are boycotting today’s meeting with Chavez. This contrasts, of course, with the Tories’ longstanding feting of the murdering torturer General Augusto Pinochet. To justify their position they ludicrously compare Chavez to Stalin. Sometimes it is necessary to choose the lesser of two evils. Britain fought with Stalin against Hitler. But with Chavez the choice is not difficult at all. He is both carrying out a progressive programme and doing so through the mandate of the ballot box.
George Bush’s refusal to respect the choices of the Venezuelan people shows that his administration has no real interest in promoting democracy at all.
Not since the 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power have people faced a clearer or more important international choice. In Venezuela millions are struggling to take their country out of poverty. They are doing so by means that are among the most democratic in the world. Both are inspiring.
Today Venezuela is being opposed largely on the basis of lies. We have to make sure Venezuelans have to face nothing worse. It is the duty of all people who support progress, justice and democracy to stand with Venezuela.
Ken Livingstone
is the mayor of London
COUNTERPUNCH.COM

Japan’s political future hinges on the successor to Junichiro Koizumi, whose tenure as president of the governing Liberal Democratic Party and, hence, prime minister will end in four months. Opinion polls show Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe is by far the most popular potential contender for the premiership.
The question is whether the new leader will continue the policies of Koizumi’s five-year reign or switch to a new course. Main issues in the LDP presidential election will be how to deal with the widening social divide resulting from Koizumi’s reform programs and how to break a deadlock in Asian diplomacy stemming from the bitter feuds with China and South Korea over Koizumi’s controversial visits to Yasukuni Shrine.
The major contenders to the premiership are, besides Abe, Foreign Minister Taro Aso, Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki and former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda.
Japan’s diplomacy in Asia has cropped up as a major issue in the LDP presidential election. Japan’s relations with China and South Korea are strained over Koizumi’s Yasukuni visits, which have forced a suspension of summit talks between Japan on one hand and China and South Korea on the other. Separately, top-level disputes have aggravated strains over exclusive economic zones and the exploitation of undersea resources among the countries involved.
Writing about the rivalry between China and Japan in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs journal, Kent E. Calder, director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, said “their relationship is increasingly strained, with dangerous implications for the U.S. and the world at large.“ It is up to the new Japanese leader to break the diplomatic deadlock.
Abe supports Japanese leaders’ Yasukuni visits, saying the visits do not necessarily mean the glorification of war. Aso is regarded as a hawk in relations with China.
Fukuda, the only non-Cabinet member among the four major contenders, is waging an active campaign to repair Japan’s relations with its Asian neighbors. In late April, he said Japan’s troubled relations with China are abnormal and must be remedied. Fukuda said he will try to create a package of diplomatic policies in Asia by improving on the “Fukuda Doctrine,“ conceived by his father in 1977 as basic policy guidelines for Japan’s relations with Southeast Asia.
The doctrine says Japan will not become a military power, will build “heart-to-heart“ relations based on trust with Southeast Asian countries, and will support ASEAN as an equal partner.
The post-Koizumi diplomatic challenges center on how to deal with the Japan-U.S. defense alliance amid the realignment of U.S. forces in the world, and with China’s military and economic emergence on the international scene.
From the days of the Roman Empire, Japan had exchanges with mainland China and the Korean Peninsula. Toward the end of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century, Japan made grave mistakes by pushing expansionist policies, following the examples of European and U.S. colonial rule in Asia.
Masayoshi Ohira Ohira once warned, before becoming prime minister, that Japan needed to do more soul-searching with regard to its history of aggression against China.
Japan may be an economic powerhouse, but that alone will not make it a respectable country. The question for Japan is: What should it do to gain more international respect as a nation with high moral standards? The most important requirement for contenders to the premiership is to demonstrate deep insight based on historical perspectives.
JAPANTIMES.CO.JP

In a scene straight out of the television show “CSI,“ Spanish forensic scientists spent the first few months of this year taking DNA samples from citizens of the Catalan region of Spain and southern France, seeking to answer one of history’s greatest unsolved mysteries: determining the true identity of Christopher Columbus.
The investigation is being led by Dr. Jose Antonio Lorente, a former instructor at the FBI academy whose work has been instrumental in identifying victims of Spanish Civil War atrocities. Saturday--when Lorente is scheduled to present his findings--marks the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ death, adding a ceremonial aspect to the inquiry.
Lorente exhumed Columbus’ remains in 2003 to take DNA samples of the explorer and then compare them to those of his brother Diego and his illegitimate son, Fernando, to establish a common genetic map. The next step was gathering saliva samples, looking for the matching mitochondrial evidence that will pinpoint Columbus’ true ancestry.
It’s commonly held that the explorer was an Italian who moved to Portugal and then Spain. But many experts suggest he was instead a Catalan nobleman who hid his true identity, or the illegitimate son of a Majorcan prince, or even a Jew who spent his life masking his true identity. Birth records indicate he was born in Genoa sometime during the fall of 1451. Skeptics, however, believe those records were fabricated by zealous city fathers.
This much is sure: Columbus had red hair, a face covered in freckles and stood about 6 feet tall, making him a giant in his day. He was a widower and the father of two sons who sailed four times to the New World between 1492 and 1504, charting and naming almost all of the Caribbean islands in the process. He discovered South America in 1498; he did not set foot on the North American landmass until 1502. On his fourth voyage, a journey of redemption that he called “El Alto Viaje“ (the High Voyage) because he successfully led his men through a biblical litany of disasters, he finally gave up his dream of finding a westward aquatic passage from Europe to Asia.
Columbus traveled as much in death as in life. His body originally was buried in Valladolid, Spain, the city where he died and the same city where Lorente will release his DNA findings.
Columbus’ body was later moved to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, then Cuba, then back to Spain, to Seville. The Dominican Republic claims that Columbus’ body never left that island nation, and it has built a great lighthouse tomb to house his remains. Lorente’s DNA samples are expected to prove where they truly reside, though even then, both the Dominican Republic and Spain may be right: Columbus’ bones could have been divided into two boxes by some sentimental Dominican caretaker, ensuring that at least part of the explorer would never leave the city that he founded, governed and named for his father.
World history is the saga of one civilization interacting with another and a cataloging of the results. When Lorente releases his findings, we will know just a little bit more about one of the Americas’ greatest immigrants. Let that be an occasion to reflect on the life of a charismatic and passionate man who chose to live boldly rather than settle for mediocrity--as well as those new explorers who, via plywood rafts, tattered shoes slapping Arizona sands or dark freight containers, follow in his footsteps.
Martin Dugard
LATIMES.COM

War and poverty have taken a huge toll on Afghanistan’s children, forcing many into armed militias, marriage or the streets, according a project launched Tuesday to help those most at risk.
Despite relative stability since the fall of the Taliban government in late 2001, some families are unable to cope, resulting in an “alarming“ increase in the number of children sent to orphanages, the plans says.
No child or family in Afghanistan has escaped the social, economic and emotional turmoil brought about by more than two decades of conflict and displacement, says the National Strategy for Children “at risk“.
“Twenty-three years of war, civil unrest and dislocation together with drought have exacerbated poverty, which is now endemic throughout the country.
“Traditional family and community support networks are stressed or disrupted.
“Many destitute families have been forced to send their children into the streets to work or beg, to workshops where labour is forced and heavy, to the fighting forces in search of income and their girls into early or forced marriage.“
With more than half the population of Afghanistan under the age of 19, more Afghan lives have been shaped by war than by stability and peace, it says. “They have lost much-loved ones, homes, playmates, schools; they are the generation that lost its childhood.“
Studies indicated that there were an estimated 8,000 underage soldiers in various factions in the country, most of them boys from poor families, it said.
A 2002 survey counted 37,000 children on the streets of the capital, more than a third of whom had never gone to school and about 70 percent of whom worked more than eight hours a day.
And more than half of the number of girls aged under 16 are married, the strategy says.
Of particular concern was the number of children being admitted to orphanages, an indication that extended family networks traditionally relied on in Afghanistan were unable to cope with poverty, unemployment and homelessness.
There were about 8,000 children in orphanages across the country, but studies showed that about 80 percent had a living parent, it said.
“Placement of these children in orphanages is used as a coping mechanism by destitute families, rather than as a child protection measure,“ the plans says.
About two-thirds of the children in institutions could be returned to their extended family, the best place for a child to grow up, if there were some support, the reports says.
The plan, launched at a ceremony of government ministers and aid groups, outlines various steps the government and aid agencies should take over the next years to help children, including dealing with poverty, shelter and health care.
It focuses on those most at risk, including children with disabilities, those who are on the street or have been trafficked, child soldiers and girls forced into marriage.
AFP.COM